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http://www.archive.org/details/fouressaysOOpottrich 


HARVARD  STUDIES  IN  ROMANCE 
LANGUAGES 

PUBLISHED  UNDER  THE  DIRECTION  OF  THE 
DEPARTMENT  OF  FRENCH  AND  OTHER 
ROMANCE    LANGUAGES    AND    LITERATURES 

VOLUME  III 


FOUR     ES  SAYS 


BY 


MURRAY  ANTHONY  POTTER,  Ph.D. 

LATE  ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  OF  ROMANCE  LANGUAGES 
IN  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

Oxford  University  Press 

I917 


COPYRIGHT,  191 7 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


The  late  Murray  Anthony  Potter,  at  the  time  of  his 
sudden  death,  was  amassing  notes  for  three  books  which 
he  had  long  contemplated:  a  treatise  on  the  horse  as  a 
character  in  epic  poetry;  a  study  of  Petrarch;  a  group 
of  essays  on  the  Renaissance.  For  these,  and  for  his 
various  University  courses,  he  left  an  abundance  of 
matter  in  the  form  of  references,  memoranda,  detached 
paragraphs,  and  outhnes  of  lectures,  but  very  Uttle  in 
the  way  of  finished  composition.  The  best  that  could 
be  done  with  most  of  his  papers  was,  therefore,  to  de- 
posit them  in  the  Harvard  Library,  for  the  use  of  investi- 
gators in  the  same  fields.  Some  pages,  however,  seemed 
to  lend  themselves,  without  too  great  departure  from 
the  writer's  intention,  to  an  arrangement  which  would 
make  them  accessible  to  the  reading  pubHc.  Hence  this 
little  volume,  prepared  by  a  few  colleagues  of  the  author 
and  offered  by  his  Department,  in  token  of  friendship 
and  gratitude. 

Cambridge,  Mass. 
July  I,  1917. 


363617 


CONTENTS 

PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 3 

PETRARCH  THE  MAN 39 

PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 79 

THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 109 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 


The  vernacular  poetry  of  Petrarch  consists  of  the  Can- 
zoniere  and  the  Trionfi.  The  Canzoniere  is  made  up 
of  366  poems,  317  of  them  being  sonnets,  29  canzoni, 
9  sestine,  7  ballate,  and  4  madrigals.  In  the  matter  of 
verse  forms  he  is  not  an  innovator.  There  has  been 
some  question  as  to  the  quarter  whence  he  got  two 
of  his  tj^es,  the  sestina  and  the  terza  rima,  whether 
from  Dante  or  from  Provencal  or  from  other  Itahan 
poets:  it  is  almost  certain  that  he  was  indebted  to  all 
these  sources  —  to  Lapo  Gianni  and  Cino  da  Pistoia, 
for  instance,  both  for  language  and  for  ideas.  Never- 
theless, beyond  a  doubt,  whatever  be  his  indebtedness 
to  any  poets  of  any  place  and  any  time,  Petrarch  is 
Petrarch,  and  we  are  perfectly  correct  when  we  speak 
of  his  influence  upon  the  hteratures  of  Italy  and  other 
countries,  from  his  own  days  down  to  ours  —  an  influ- 
ence which  is  one  of  the  most  notable  in  all  history. 

Not  aU  of  the  poems  in  his  great  collection  treat  of 
Laura:  some  thirty  have  to  do  with  subjects  not  con- 
cerned with  love;  and  when  a  reader  is  taking  the 
Canzoniere  in  long  draughts,  these  poems  are  refresh- 
ing—  not  merely  because  of  novelty,  either,  for  they 

3 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

possess  great  intrinsic  beauty.  There  is,  first  of  all,  the 
famous  one  to  Italy,  Italia  mia,  in  which  the  author  la- 
ments the  discords  of  his  country  and  the  presence  of  the 
barbarian  troops,  an  ode  for  which  Luigi  Marsih  wrote 
a  conmientary.  Then  we  have  the  Spirto  Gentil,  which 
has  often  been  regarded  as  an  address  to  Cola  di  Rienzi 
(a  little  altered  after  that  hero's  downfall,  as  Cian 
would  have  us  beheve),  and  which  Carducci  and  Fer- 
rari, contrary  to  the  less  enthusiastic  de  Sanctis,  regard 
as  one  of  the  greatest  lyrics  produced  by  the  Latin 
races.  There  is  also  one  on  Fame,  which  is  of  more  than 
personal  interest,  a  poem  meant  for  the  great  captain, 
Pandolfo  Malatesta,  Uaspettata  vertu:  "  That  virtue 
which  flowered  in  you  when  Love  began  to  wage 
war  upon  you  has  now  produced  fruit  worthy  of  that 
flower  .  .  . ;  wherefore  my  heart  bids  me  write  upon  paper 
words  which  shall  bring  lustre  upon  your  name,  for  in  no 
other  material  can  that  be  done.  Do  you  believe  that 
Caesar  or  Marcellus  or  Paulus  ^miUus  or  Scipio  would 
have  been  what  they  are,  by  the  help  of  bronze  or 
marble  ?  Pandolfo  mine,  those  works  are  too  pale  to 
count  upon  for  long  duration.  It  is  our  work  which  ren- 
ders men  immortal,  bestowing  fame.''  This  is  certainly 
Renaissance  in  spirit;  and  so  is  still  another  poem  well 
worth  reading,  on  Glory,  Una  donna  piu  hella  assai 
che  7  sole,  which  alludes  to  his  coronation.  Again,  like 
the  Provencal  poets,  he  writes  a  compianto  or  lament,  a 
poem  on  the  death  of  Cino  of  Pistoia,  "  Weep,  ladies, 
and  let  Love  weep  with  you." 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

It  is,  however,  the  love  lyrics  which  form  Petrarch's 
most  important  contribution  to  poetry.  Scarano,  who 
is  one  of  Petrarch^s  severest  critics,  maintains)  that  in 
his  attitude  towards  Laura  the  poet  has  taken'^  step 
backwards,  that  instead  of  placing  himself  by  the  side 
of  the  artists  of  the  dolce  stil  nuovo,  or  marching  in 
advance,  he  stands  half  way  between  them,  with  their 
mystical,  philosophical  love,  and  the  older  school  of 
Provencal  poets,  with  their  feudal  devotion.  It  is 
absurd  to  blame  him  for  this;  rather  is  it  a  cause  for 
rejoicing.  Were  Laura  not  as  human  as  she  is,  his  verse 
would  lack  one  of  its  great  charms.  Not  that  she  stands 
out  very  clearly  defined,  in  spite  of  his  characterization 
of  her  hair  yellower  than  gold,  now  bound  together  by 
strings  of  pearls  and  other  jewels,  now  floating  in  the 
air  (it  is  hard  not  to  think  of  the  quattrocento  pictures) ; 
of  her  ebony  eyebrows;  of  the  dark  eyes  in  which  love 
nests  and  which  are  his  guiding  stars;  of  her  teeth  and 
lips,  pearls  and  vermeil  roses;  and  of  her  hands,  pure 
ivory  and  fresh  roses.  Nor  are  we  much  aided  by  his 
statement  that  she  was  wise  ("sotto  biondi  capei  canuta 
mente'O,  eloquent,  and  that  her  singing  touched  one's 
very  soul.  Indeed,  all  this  is  not  necessary.  Petrarch 
is  a  Pygmalion  who  in  his  mind  has  fashioned  a  beauti- 
ful statue  and,  being  a  true  creator,  has  endowed  his 
Galatea  with  a  Hfe  so  intense  that  she  Hves  for  us  as  for 
him,  so  real  that  we,  no  more  than  he,  need  the  real 
Laura.  Whether  we  are  able  to  follow  him  with  sus- 
tained interest  in  every  step  of  his  detailed  accoimt  of 

5 


/  PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

V"  ... 

^\y  ^f  his  passion,  is  quite  another  matter.    His  sonnets  and 

^    v^  canzoni  taken  in  too  large  doses  leave  an  impression  of 

n}j   j''  linked  sweetness  long  drawn  out,  and  the  subtle  psy- 

d'j-^  chology  grows  wearisome.    With  him,  it  is  more  difficult 

than  in  the  case  of  Dante  to  take  seriously  the  agony 
'^  he  suffers,  except  possibly  as  a  symptom  of  melancholia.  1 
"  Et  io  son  un  di  quel  che  '1  pianger  giova,''  is  his  cry; 
and  the  poems  are  full  of  idle  tears.  There  is  no  use  in 
trying  to  disguise  the  fact  that  these  perpetual  tears  are 
tiresome  and  hurt  the  man  in  our  esteem,  the  more  so 
since  he  too  often  shows  serious  lack  of  taste  when  speak- 
ing of  them.  On  one  occasion,  for  example,  he  makes 
Laura  say:  "  The  sad  waves  of  tears  with  which  you 
are  never  satiated,  together  with  the  breeze  of  sighs, 
pass  through  the  great  space  between  earth  and  heaven 
and  disturb  my  peace."  Elsewhere  he  tells  us  that 
Laura  caused  to  flow  from  his  eyes  such  a  river  that  not 
only  were  bridges,  fords,  oars,  and  sails  unable  to  cross 
it,  but  even  wings  and  plumes,  a  river  deep  and  broad, 
with  so  distant  a  shore  that  he  could  hardly  reach  it 
with  his  thoughts.  Again,  asking  Laura,  now  in  Heaven 
by  God's  side,  to  bring  it  about  that  he  may  soon  join 
her,  he  exclaims :  "  Regard  my  pure  love  and  pure  faith, 
wherefore  I  have  shed  so  many  tears  and  so  much  ink.^^ 
These  examples  are  very  far  from  exhausting  the  in- 
stances of  bad  taste  and  far-fetched  conceit  in  his  po- 
ems. In  addition  to  anguished  sighs,  sometimes  violent 
enough  to  cause  forests  to  rock,  there  is  the  frequent  — 
even  morbid  —  playing  upon  the  word  Laura.    It  is  not 

6 


PETRARCH  teE  AUTHOR 

mere  perversity  that  leads  one  to  lay  stress  upon  these 
spots  on  a  very  bright  sun.  One  does  so  because  no 
other  Italian  poet  has  exercised  such  an  influence  upon 
Itahan  verse,  not  to  speak  of  the  poetry  of  other  coun- 
tries; and  that  influence  has  been  generally  baleful, 
because  the  inferior  but  popular  copyists  have  imitated 
Petrarch's  worst  qualities,  being  quite  unfit  to  reproduce 
the  real  beauties  of  one  who  stands,  after  all,  among  the 
grand  poets  of  the  world. 

In  the  case  of  Petrarch  more  than  in  that  of  Dante  or 
of  other  leaders  of  men,  we  feel  the  need  of  striking  a 
balance  of  all  his  works.  There  was  in  him  so  much  that 
was  petty,  that  it  is  dangerously  easy  to  forget  how 
really  great  he  was.  A  number  of  the  minor  things  he 
did  would  be  sufficient  to  give  him  a  conspicuous  place 
in  the  history  of  the  Renaissance:  the  first  humanist 
comedy,  the  first  Renaissance  epic  on  classic  hues,  the 
first  important  body  of  bucolic  verse,  the  prose  letters; 
the  interest  he  showed  in  nature,  in  geography,  in 
traveUing  (the  Itinerarium) ;  his  love  for  collecting 
books  and  his  desire  to  found  a  public  library;  his  com- 
parative independence  as  a  scholar,  his  discrimination  in 
the  use  of  authorities,  and  his  judicial  attitude  toward 
scholasticism — a  trait  very  significant  of  new  times.  To 
these  are  to  be  added  greater  things:  his  passion  for  elo- 
quence, his  use  of  it  as  a  touchstone  in  Hterary  criticism, 
and  his  own  remarkable  mastery  of  it,  not  so  much  in 
Latin  prose  (though  here  he  was  a  teacher  and  an 
example  to  men  who  justified  their  study  of  eloquence 

7 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

by  turning  it  to  account  in  public  life)  as  in  poetry. 
Said  Dante  to  one  of  his  odes:  "  Ode!  I  believe  they 
shall  be  but  rare  who  shall  rightly  understand  thy 
meaning,  so  intricate  and  knotty  is  thy  utterance  of  it. 
Wherefore,  if  it  perchance  come  about  that  thou  take 
thy  way  into  the  presence  of  folk  who  seem  not  rightly 
to  perceive  it,  then  I  pray  thee  to  take  heart  again,  and 
say  to  them,  O  my  beloved  lastHng,  ^  Give  heed  at  least 
how  beautiful  I  am.'  "  Now,  the  first  and  last  appeal  of 
Petrarch's  verse  must  be  its  unsurpassed  lovehness  of 
form.  The  subject  matter  is  too  often  trivial;  but  if  we 
observe  closely  as  we  read  the  poem,  we  find  it  an  ex- 
quisite mosaic,  the  beauty  of  whose  every  bit  is  enhanced 
by  the  skillful  juxtaposition  of  its  neighbor  —  or  else  it 
is  pure  music.  And,  as  I  have  said,  Petrarch's  distinc- 
tion mainly  rests,  in  my  opinion,  on  his  being  the  greatest 
lyricist  of  the  Renaissance,  and  one  of  the  few  supreme 
lyric  poets  the  world  has  ever  seen.  At  the  same  time, 
I  fully  appreciate  his  other  claims  to  our  study  and 
admiration.  The  two  best  exemplars  of  self-study  — 
study  of  the  ego  and,  through  the  ego,  of  Man  —  in  the 
Renaissance  are  the  Frenchman,  Montaigne,  and  the 
ItaUan,  Petrarch,  who  preceded  him  by  two  centuries. 
In  Petrarch's  case,  even  more  interesting  than  the  pub- 
lication of  his  self-analysis  is  his  insistence  upon  the 
right  of  individualism  to  recognition  and  reward.  When 
Petrarch  tried  to  legitimize  glory  by  asserting  that  a  very 
essential  part  of  it  was  due  to  a  man's  virtue  and  good 
deeds,  he  was  not  quite  consistent.    So  far  as  these  were 

8 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

concerned,  leaving  aside  the  veneration  of  a  man's  con- 
temporaries, there  were  two  ample  rewards,  after  death 
beatitude  above,  and  on  earth  the  canonization  which 
the  Church  can  bestow.  So  far  as  deeds  of  valor  were 
concerned,  great  fighters  of  whatever  rank  were  amply- 
able  with  their  own  hands  to  win  fame  which  should 
at  least  accompany  them  in  their  lifetime.  But  now 
comes  one  who  takes  up  the  cause  of  pure  letters,  which 
for  centuries  had  been  regarded  as  vain  or  worldly.  The 
poet,  the  man  of  letters,  a  vastly  more  important  per- 
sonage than  the  singer  of  the  guild  or  the  troubadour, 
wins  his  meed  of  glory  and  something  more.  The  secular 
world  is  ennobled,  and  within  it  no  power,  not  even  the 
emperor's,  can  bestow  a  gift  comparable  to  that  which 
the  poet  has  at  his  disposal.  The  emperor  can  accord 
wealth  and  crowns,  the  poet  immortahty.  Brave  men 
lived  before  Agamemnon,  Horace  declares.  "  They 
had  no  poet,  and  they  died."  The  poet  can  even  canon- 
ize whom  he  chooses,  and  indeed  may  secure  his  own 
halo,  as  did  Petrarch.  And  this  coronation  must  be  a 
function  of  pomp  and  circumstance,  no  longer  a  mere 
local  affair,  as  it  was  with  Mussato  and  as  it  might  have 
been  with  Dante;  it  must  possess  a  more  universal 
character  and  be  celebrated  in  the  city  which  had  been 
for  centuries  the  home  of  a  glorious  universal  literature, 
where  other  crowns  had  been  conferred.  In  his  search 
for  self-glorification  Petrarch  was  Uke  Saul,  who  went 
out  to  look  for  the  asses  of  his  father  Klish,  and  obtained 
the  kingdom  of  Israel.    He  won  from  the  world  and  for 

9 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

the  world  full  recognition  of  the  individual  humanist,  the 
individual  man  of  letters. 

II 

To  the  great  majority  of  readers  of  Petrarch's  verse  his 
Latin  works  are  unknown,  but  some  of  these  writings 
deserve  a  better  fate  and  should  be  rescued  from  ob- 
livion. This  is  particularly  true  of  the  Secretum  and 
certain  Latin  epistles  and  sundry  passages  in  the  Ec- 
logues, of  which  no  lover  of  the  Canzoniere  can  afford  to 
be  ignorant.  And  then  there  are  the  letters,  which 
should  appeal  to  an  even  larger  circle.  If  men  of  to-day 
in  no  way  conspicuous  for  their  talents  find  willing 
listeners  when  they  narrate  their  recollections  and  im- 
pressions, simply  because  they  have  seen  much  of  the 
world  and  possess  a  certain  power  of  observation  and  a 
facile  pen,  the  correspondence  of  Petrarch  should  indeed 
be  a  land  of  promise.  In  this  case  the  writer  is  not 
merely  one  of  the  most  famous  men  of  letters  that  have 
ever  lived;  he  is  also  one  who  was  deeply  interested  in 
everything  that  took  place  about  him,  and  whose  good 
fortune  it  was  to  Hve  in  a  supremely  absorbing  period  of 
Italy's  history,  the  age  which  witnessed  the  Babylonian 
captivity  of  the  popes,  the  rise  of  the  Italian  despots, 
and  the  change  from  the  Middle  Ages  to  the  Renais- 
sance. Though  he  affected  retirement,  we  know  what 
an  insatiable  traveller  he  was,  and  what  an  indefati- 
gable cultivator  of  friendships.  One  cannot  glance 
casually  over  the  list  of  his  correspondents  without 

lO 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

feeling  that  a  conjuror's  wand  has  restored  to  life  the 
whole  fourteenth  century.  A  grand  procession  of  men 
of  all  ranks  marches  before  one's  eyes.  In  the  company 
of  humbler  but  equally  dear  friends,  one  meets  with 
popes,  cardinals,  and  bishops;  with  the  secular  aris- 
tocracy, including  seemingly  all  the  noblest  names  of 
Italy,  the  Colonnas,  the  Viscontis,  the  Carraras,  the 
Malatestas,  the  Correggios;  with  really  great  figures 
like  Boccaccio  and  Rienzi. 

One's  curiosity  is  immensely  whetted,  but  in  no  wise, 
I  fear,  has  it  ever  been  completely  gratified.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  account  for  the  disappointment.  As  soon  as 
the  history  of  the  formation  of  the  collection  is  known, 
a  reason  suggests  itself.  Just  as  Petrarch  decided,  late 
in  life,  to  edit  his  verse,  so,  when  about  fifty-five  years 
old  (that  is,  in  1359),  he  began  to  think  about  sifting 
and  arranging  his  correspondence  for  pubhcation.  The 
work  was  difficult  and  progressed  slowly,  but,  thanks  to 
the  skill  of  the  youth  from  Ravenna,  the  Familiarum 
Rerum  Libri  xxiv  was  achieved  —  the  Letters  of  Friendly 
Intercourse,  as  the  title  is  translated  by  Robinson  and 
Rolfe.  The  three  hundred  and  forty-seven  letters  cover 
the  years  1332-62.  To  this  first  collection  should  be 
added  the  Epistolce  Varice  —  miscellaneous  letters  — 
which  he  had  thought  best  not  to  include  with  the 
others.  In  the  last  one  of  the  Familiar  Letters  he  says 
to  the  friend  whom  he  calls  Socrates:  "  The  letters 
which  I  shall  write  from  now  on  —  if  it  is  your  sincere 
wish  that  nothing  of  mine  should  be  lost  —  I  shall  place 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

in  the  third  volume,  and  shall  bestow  upon  them  the 
name  of  my  elderly  years."  So  there  is  a  third  collec- 
tion, the  Epistolarum  de  Rebus  Senilihus  Libri  ocvi,  or 
Letters  of  Old  Age,  of  which  there  is  no  good  modem 
Latin  edition,  and  only  one  Italian  translation,  now  out 
of  print.  Finally,  a  collection  which  certainly  deserves 
a  place  by  itself,  since  it  is  Petrarch's  contribution  (of 
course  not  the  only  one)  to  the  Uterature  of  invective,  a 
special  humanistic  genre  and  one  vigorously  cultivated. 
The  collection  bears  the  name  of  Epistolce  sine  Tittdo, 
These  contain  fierce  attacks  upon  the  abuses  (not  the 
dogmas)  of  the  CathoHc  church.  To  form  such  collec- 
tions of  letters,  it  was  necessary  that  the  author  should 
have  kept  copies,  and  the  existence  of  these  proves  that 
he  regarded  the  letters  as  compositions  of  some  Hterary 
value,  however  sHghtingly  he  might  speak  of  them,  and 
also,  almost  certainly,  that  he  intended  to  put  them  to 
some  use.  There  was  nothing  strange  or  unusual  in 
such  procedure,  and  these  volumes  justify  Vossler's 
words  that  "  the  prose  letter  is  perhaps  the  most  im- 
portant creation  of  the  Renaissance." 

Now,  the  literary  preoccupation  is  unmistakable  if 
one  only  looks  at  the  bulk  of  the  letters  composing  the 
last,  or  twenty-fourth,  book  of  the  Familiar es.  They  are 
letters  addressed  to  dead  authors,  a  species  of  the  genus 
of  the  essay,  cultivated  with  much  success  in  our  own 
times  by  Andrew  Lang.  But  these  are  not  the  only 
essays :  many  of  the  letters  are  little  diatribes,  treatises, 
exercises  in  description.     Of  course  this  is  one  very 

13 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

important  reason  why  the  humanist's  correspondence 
is  interesting  historically  if  not  intrinsically.  The  letter 
is  the  essay  more  or  less  embryonic,  more  or  less  de- 
veloped. But  when  we  turn  to  Petrarch's  correspon- 
dence, we  do  so  with  a  hunger  for  the  letter  pure  and 
simple,  and  we  are  not  asking  too  much.  "  I  remember," 
he  says,  "  Seneca's  laughing  at  Cicero  for  including  in 
his  letters  unimportant  matters,  and  nevertheless  I  am 
far  more  incHned  to  follow  Cicero  than  Seneca.  Seneca 
indeed  stored  in  his  letters  nearly  all  the  moral  reflec- 
tions which  he  had  pubhshed  in  his  various  books,  while 
Cicero  treated  philosophical  subjects  in  his  books  and 
filled  his  letters  with  the  varied  news  and  gossip  of  the 
day.  Whatever  Seneca  may  think  about  it,  I  must  say 
that  I  find  Cicero's  correspondence  very  entertaining." 
And  again  in  a  letter  to  Socrates,  which  serves  as  a 
preface  to  the  collection  (just  as  one  addressed  to  the 
same  person  brings  it  to  a  close),  he  speaks  of  Cicero 
again:  "  To  return  to  the  letters,  you  wiU  find  many 
written  in  a  famiHar  style  to  friends,  including  yourself, 
sometimes  referring  to  matters  of  pubHc  or  private 
interest,  sometimes  relating  to  bereavements  (which 
form,  alas !  an  ever  recurring  theme),  or  to  other  matters 
which  circumstances  brought  into  prominence.  I  have 
discussed  almost  nothing  else,  except  as  I  have  spoken 
of  my  state  of  mind  or  have  imparted  some  bit  of  news 
to  my  friends.  I  approve,  you  see,  what  Cicero  says  in 
his  first  letter  to  his  brother,  that  it  is  the  proper  aim  of 
a  letter  to  inform  the  one  to  whom  it  is  directed  of 

13 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

something  of  which  he  was  ignorant  ....  I  have 
chosen  as  a  title  of  my  volume,  Letters  of  Familiar  Inter- 
course —  that  is,  letters  in  which  there  is  little  anxious 
regard  to  style,  but  where  homely  matters  are  treated 
in  a  homely  manner."  Well  and  good,  but  he  goes  on 
to  say:  "  Sometimes,  when  it  is  not  inappropriate,  there 
may  be  a  bit  of  simple  narration,  or  a  few  moral  maxims 
such  as  Cicero  was  accustomed  to  introduce  into  his 
letters  '';  and  this  jarring  note  is  repeated  in  his  letter 
to  Laehus,  in,  20:  "  Why,  brother,  do  you  complain  of 
having  nothing  to  write  ?  Really,  though  I  can  never 
beheve  that  a  man  so  well  informed,  intelUgent,  and 
eloquent  as  you  can  lack  material  for  a  letter,  I  prefer 
to  accept  any  true  or  fictitious  excuse  rather  than 
attribute  your  silence  to  the  veil  of  forgetfulness.  Now 
this  is  what  I  ask  of  you  —  something  which  many  have 
asked  of  their  friends,  and,  among  those  I  have  read, 
first  of  all  Cicero  —  write  that  you  had  nothing  to  write  ^ 
Now,  it  is  a  great  pity  that  Petrarch,  whose  admira- 
tion for  Cicero  was  so  intense,  and  who  divined  his 
pecuhar  charm,  should  not  have  tried  to  obtain  that 
grace,  rather  than  imitate  Cicero's  use  of  maxims  and 
moralizing,  and  in  general  follow  if  anything  a  little 
more  closely  Seneca;  but  then  it  was  not  until  1345  that 
he  came  into  possession  of  a  large  nmnber  of  Cicero's 
letters  —  that  is,  about  halfway  between  the  opening 
and  closing  members  of  his  own  first  collection.  PUny 
the  younger,  if  we  are  to  believe  Nolhac,  he  never  read; 
but  he  almost  certainly  knew  the  correspondence  of 

14 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

St.  Jerome,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  his  acquaint- 
ance with  that  of  Seneca  and  of  Abelard.  Now,  partly 
owing  to  his  fondness  for  Seneca,  and  partly  to  certain 
vicious  ideas  as  to  the  proper  function  of  correspond- 
ence, Petrarch  often  disappoints  us.  The  Latin  letter  was 
a  work  of  art,  carefully  composed,  deaUng  with  matters 
of  general  interest  and  addressed  to  a  large  audience, 
not  merely  to  the  person  to  whom  it  was  sent.  Not 
only  do  statements  in  Petrarch's  letters  indicate  this, 
but  we  know  also  from  various  sources  that,  like  any 
precious  merchandise,  missives  in  Latin  attracted  the 
cupidity  of  the  thief  and  often  failed  to  reach  their 
destination. 

Letters  which  stand  halfway  between  the  personal 
and  the  general,  are  those  of  condolence.  Many  of 
Petrarch's  associates  were  grievously  troubled  and 
afflicted,  and  it  was  the  part  of  a  good  friend  to  try  to 
alleviate  their  sorrows.  Petrarch  was  not  the  one  to 
shirk  his  obHgations;  whether  he  fulfilled  them  suc- 
cessfully is  a  different  matter.  A  fair  example  of  his 
efforts  is  the  third  letter  of  the  second  book  of  the 
Familiares,  addressed  to  a  Severus  Appenninicola  who 
had  suffered  exile.  A  modem  reader  may  think  it 
administers  cold  comfort.  It  begins  forbiddingly  with 
a  definition  of  the  word  exile,  in  which  Servius  is  quoted; 
it  is  full  of  antiquity;  and  one  is  not  surprised  that  the 
author  has  to  redouble  his  efforts  in  a  second  letter, 
wherein  he  remarks:  "  It  pains  me  that  what  I  said  in 
my  preceding  letter  did  not  profit  you,  and  I  do  not 

IS 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

know  whose  is  the  fault,  the  sick  man's  or  the  physi- 
cian's." Other  vicissitudes  of  fortune  or  afflictions  may 
be  his  theme;  a  defense  of  poetry;  an  attack  upon 
medicine;  the  question  so  interesting  to  humanists, 
whether  it  is  better  to  remain  single  or  to  marry; 
praises  of  old  age;  the  all-importance  of  equanimity 
and  eloquence;  the  use  of  the  second  person  singular, 
instead  of  the  plural,  in  letters;  the  difference  between 
loquacity  and  eloquence;  the  degeneracy  of  the  age  in 
which  he  hved.  Sometimes  the  subject  is  treated  with 
brevity;  not  infrequently  it  becomes  a  treatise,  as  he 
confesses  frankly.  In  a  very  long  letter  to  Bnmi  he 
speaks  of  the  preceding  one  in  the  collection,  addressed 
to  the  Pope,  as  being  rather  a  "  short  little  bit  of 
writing  "  than  a  regular  letter. 

Yet  the  man  who,  seeking  "  the  homely  matters," 
should  turn  away  in  disgust  from  these  pamphlets  or 
essays,  would  be  acting  very  unwisely,  for  this  very  "  bit 
of  writing,"  full  of  the  most  glowing  enthusiasm  for 
Italy,  is  an  important  document  in  the  Hterature  of 
patriotism,  an  interesting  class  at  this  period.  A  fine, 
vigorous  expression  of  Petrarch's  patriotism  one  will 
find  in  it  then.  Indeed,  one  has  only  to  plunge  coura- 
geously into  any  volume,  skip  judiciously,  and  one's 
reward  will  be  ample.  Hardly  a  letter  is  there  which 
does  not  add  to  one's  knowledge  of  the  man,  or  confirm 
one's  appreciation. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  last  eight  books  of  the  Letters 
of  Old  Age,  where  we  find  the  same  great  variety  of 

x6 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

correspondents  and  themes.  At  the  beginning  of  what 
is  ostensibly  a  letter,  but  which  in  some  editions  is 
printed  separately  and  entitled  Treatise  on  the  Art  of 
Good  Government  J  he  writes  to  Pandolfo  Malatesta: 
"  Often  have  I  thought  it  would  not  be  seemly  if, 
among  the  names  of  so  many  men  of  great  and  mediocre 
station,  yours  were  lacking";  and  incidentally  he 
indulges  in  flattery  which  is  pretty  gross.  In  another 
epistle  he  declares:  "I  have  always  answered  people 
who  have  written  to  me,  and  sometimes  I  have  been 
the  first  to  write."  From  the  fourth  letter  of  the  thir- 
teenth book  we  learn  that  Giovanni  d^Arezzo  is  making 
a  collection  of  his  works,  and  Petrarch  makes  the  fol- 
lowing important  remarks:  "  You  say  you  have  many 
of  my  letters;  I  wish  you  had  them  all  and  correctly 
written.  .  .  .  You  hope,  too,  that  you  have  all  my 
vernacular  works.  .  .  .  Here  it  is  especially  necessary 
that  the  readings  shotdd  be  correct. ^^  More  than  once  he 
speaks  of  what  is  fit  subject  matter  for  letters;  for 
example  in  one  to  Francesco  Bruni:  "  I  leave  aside 
domestic  matters,  about  which  you  wrote  me  at  some 
length,  inasmuch  as  they  are  not  worthy  of  being 
treated  in  a  noble  style."  How  artificial  his  style  can 
be,  one  may  judge  by  looking  at  another  letter  to  the 
same  person,  in  which,  for  the  sake  of  animation,  the 
writer  introduces  an  imaginary  dialogue. 

Then  there  are  numerous  illustrations  of  his  vanity 
and  his  desire  for  fame.  "  Finally,  (that  you  may  know 
all  that  has  happened  to  me)  I  have  received  again  and 

17 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

again  most  cordial  invitations  from  the  Pope,  the 
emperor,  the  French  king,  and  other  kings,  which  I 
cannot  attribute  to  anything  but  the  hidden  workings 
of  fate."  Above  all  should  be  read  the  letter  to  Donato, 
the  teacher  of  Piacenza,  in  which  he  emmierates  his 
illustrious  visitors;  and  the  one  to  Bruni  in  which  he 
describes  his  courageous  behavior  on  the  trip  from 
Pavia  to  Padua.  Here,  if  nowhere  else,  one  could  col- 
lect evidence  of  his  desire  for  fame.  He  has  no  mind  to 
cheapen  himself;  and,  writing  to  Urban  V,  he  makes 
this  interesting  remark:  "  I  should  do  better  not  to 
appear  before  you,  lest  that  befall  me  which  a  fellow- 
countryman  of  mine  thus  expressed,  ^  His  presence 
hurts  his  reputation.'  "  Fame  above  all  else:  he  makes 
every  effort  to  acquire  and  retain  it.  Boccaccio  vainly 
pleads  with  him  to  desist  from  striving:  "  Because  of 
your  example,  many  within  and  perhaps  without  Italy 
are  cultivating  studies  neglected  for  centuries;  so  you, 
being  old,  should  rest  and  give  them  an  opportunity." 
He  cannot  be  persuaded.  And  yet  his  honors  have  cost 
him  dear.  Ever  since  he  was  crowned,  he  has  had  to  be 
on  his  guard  dodging  the  blows  rained  down  upon  him 
by  former  friends  made  enemies,  now  attacking  him 
with  pen  and  tongue.  "Oh!  how  many  things  of  that 
kind  I  could  tell  you,"  he  exclaims,  "  which  would 
make  you  shudder!  "  And  then  the  envious!  But,  as 
Petrarch  says,  "  the  troubles  of  the  mind  are  perilous, 
to  be  sure,  yet  easier  to  cure  than  those  of  the  body." 
Moreover,  he  has  found  a  remedy:   "  Unceasing  labor 

x8 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

and  application  are  the  food  of  my  mind.  When  I  begin 
to  relax  and  seek  repose,  be  assured  that  I  shall  cease  to 
live."  This  is  admirable;  and  we  can  forgive  him 
much  when  he  has  the  manhness  (referring  to  his  many 
battles)  to  cry  out  mea  culpa:  "  I  have  sinned  much; 
my  letters  full  of  repining  and  lamentation  prove  that. 
I  blush,  and  wish  I  had  never  written  them." 

In  his  complaints,  however,  he  was  by  no  means 
always  in  the  wrong:  his  letters  against  the  medical 
practice  of  his  day  are  very  instructive.  Entertaining 
are  his  accounts  of  travel  —  travel,  which,  he  says  "  is 
really  my  custom,  having  become  almost  habitual." 
Most  interesting  of  all,  perhaps,  are  a  few  bits  of  de- 
scription —  "  homely  matters,"  he  might  have  called 
them  —  which  somehow  bring  back  the  past  and  place 
it  before  our  eyes.  When  standing  up  in  defence  of 
Italy,  and  emphasizing  the  intolerable  heat  of  southern 
France,  he  says:  "During  the  pontificate  of  John 
XXII,  I  remember  the  skies  to  have  been  so  blazing 
and  the  penury  of  rain  to  have  been  so  great,  that  the 
common  people,  stripped  to  the  waist,  in  a  frenzy 
rushed  about  through  that  Paradise  of  the  cardinals, 
beating  their  breasts  and  crying  out  for  a  drop  of  water 
to  fall  from  heaven  and  end  their  torment.  I  recall, 
too,  that  nearly  every  summer  the  burned  skin  fell  off 
the  faces,  necks,  and  hands  of  both  men  and  women 
just  as  scales  fall  from  a  serpent.  If  any  one  remained 
intact  in  that  furnace,  he  was  said  to  have  been  made 
of  iron."    There  is  a  pathetic  description  of  Robert  of 

19 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

Naples  sitting  and  watching  by  his  sick  son's  bedside, 
not  merely  as  a  father  but  as  a  doctor,  for  he  was  an 
excellent  physician.  "  When  the  son  died,  he  alone  in 
the  midst  of  universal  grief  was  steadfast,  shed  no  tear, 
and  went  about  his  work."  Petrarch  speaks  about 
earthquakes  which  shook  all  Italy  and  part  of  Germany, 
so  that  many  thought  the  world  was  coming  to  an  end. 
"  I  happened  to  be  in  Verona,  seated  alone  in  my 
Hbrary,  and,  taken  by  surprise,  feehng  the  earth  tremble 
under  my  feet  and  seeing  the  books  about  me  fall  down 
one  upon  the  other,  I  hurried  out  of  the  room  stunned, 
and  saw  first  my  servants,  and  then  many  people, 
fleeing,  pale  as  death."  Last  of  all,  here  is  something 
about  vegetable  influences  with  which  medical  science 
is  concerning  itself  to-day.  "  I  knew  once  a  cardinal  of 
the  Roman  church,  respected  for  his  years  and  wisdom, 
who  had  such  a  horror  of  peaches  that  he  turned  pale 
at  the  mere  sight  of  them  and  was  bathed  in  cold 
sweat.  Wherefore  his  attendants  took  care  that  he 
should  not  see  them.  There  was  another,  living  in  the 
palace  of  Pope  Clement  VI,  who,  when  one  of  his 
youthful  colleagues  showed  him  a  rose,  took  to  flight, 
and,  the  other  following  him,  ran  from  room  to  room 
through  the  vast  apartments;  and  if  anyone  had  tried 
to  stop  him,  he  would  have  jumped  out  of  the  windows 
at  the  peril  of  his  Hfe,  to  avoid  the  odor  of  the  detested 
flower." 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 


m 


In  addition  to  Latin  prose  works,  Petrarch  wrote  much 
verse  in  that  language,  and  upon  one  of  his  Latin 
poems  he  based  his  hopes  of  future  fame.  This  is  the 
Africa.  "  While  I  was  wandering  m  the  mountains 
upon  a  Friday  in  Holy  Week,"  he  says  in  his  Letter  to 
Posterity,  "  the  strong  desire  seized  me  to  write  an  epic 
in  a  heroic  strain,  taking  as  my  theme  Scipio  Africanus 
the  Great  who  had,  strange  to  say,  been  dear  to  me 
from  my  childhood.  This  poem  was  christened  Africa 
from  the  name  of  its  hero;  and,  either  from  its  own 
fortunes  or  from  mine,  it  did  not  fail  to  arouse  the 
interest  of  many  before  they  had  seen  it."  This  was 
the  poem  he  took  with  him  to  Naples  to  show  King 
Robert,  when  he  wished  to  prove  that  he  merited  the 
laurel  at  Rome.  It  was  not  complete;  indeed,  he  never 
succeeded  in  putting  it  into  final  shape.  As  we  have  it, 
there  are  nine  books,  the  considerable  gaps  showing 
that  it  must  have  been  longer  in  the  author's  plan. 
Though  Petrarch  began  it  with  such  enthusiasm  and 
expected  so  much  from  it,  the  work  was  a  source  of 
continual  unhappiness;  and  the  poet  would  have 
suffered  more,  had  he  known  what  was  to  be  its  fate 
after  his  death.  The  only  part  which  he  made  pubHc 
(apart  from  showing  it  to  King  Robert)  was  the  last 
thirty-four  lines  of  the  episode  of  Mago,  in  which  that 
hero  laments  the  vicissitudes  of  fortune.  This  he  sent 
to  his  friend  Barbato,  who  promised  not  to  show  it  to 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

any  one  else;  but  he  did,  and  unfortunately  the  frag- 
ment was  severely  criticised,  especially  in  Florence. 
Petrarch  was  greatly  angered,  and  at  the  same  time 
discouraged.  Vergerius,  a  late  fourteenth  (and  early 
fifteenth)  century  admirer  and  biographer  of  Petrarch, 
says  that,  according  to  report,  in  the  poet's  last  years, 
whenever  the  Africa  was  mentioned,  he  was  greatly 
disturbed,  and  the  expression  of  his  face  betrayed  his 
mental  trouble. 

When  he  died,  there  was  great  anxiety  to  see  the  work. 
Boccaccio  wrote  to  Petrarch's  son-in-law,  begging  him 
to  send  a  copy,  which  was  sent,  but  arrived  only  after 
Boccaccio's  death.  Coluccio  Salutati,  one  of  Petrarch's 
most  enthusiastic  followers,  read  it  in  three  nights  and 
was  greatly  disappointed.  On  the  whole,  the  Africa 
failed  to  justify  expectations.  I  find  it  rather  hard  to 
account  for  the  lack  of  enthusiasm  —  that  is,  when  we 
bear  in  mind  the  other  Latin  epics  of  the  time  and  the 
later  Renaissance.  It  is  not  the  liveHest  work  in  the 
world,  by  any  means,  but  it  is  readable.  Its  faults,  of 
course,  are  patent:  the  Romans  are  all  good,  the  Car- 
thaginians all  bad;  the  hero  is  as  pious  as  ^neas.  Like 
the  early  writers  of  Christian  epic,  who  dared  not 
depart  from  the  Bible,  Petrarch  closely  follows  history; 
but  this  means  the  omission  of  much  mythological 
machinery,  which  makes  so  many  Renaissance  epics 
almost  unreadable.  Again,  though  it  lacks  intrinsic 
interest,  it  is  historically  important.  It  is  the  first 
Renaissance  epic  built  upon  classic  lines.    Then,  too, 

22 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

like  the  De  Viris  Illustribus,  it  is  a  glorification  of 
Roman  history,  of  the  valor  and  monuments  of  antiq- 
uity. The  most  successful  part  of  the  poem  is  the 
episode  of  Sophonisba  and  Masinissa,  a  story  which 
became  popular  to  an  extraordinary  degree  with  the 
Renaissance  dramatists. 

Of  considerable  importance  is  another  group  of 
poems,  the  Eclogues,  for  not  even  in  antiquity  was  the 
Pastoral  so  popular  as  it  became  in  the  Renaissance. 
It  went  into  an  ecHpse  during  the  Middle  Ages,  though 
examples  are  not  altogether  wanting.  Dante  resusci- 
tated it;  and  then  came  Petrarch  with  twelve  eclogues 
written  during  the  years  1346-57.  He  was  inspired  to 
write  them  by  love  of  nature,  by  his  affection  for  Vau- 
cluse.  This  is  what  he  says  in  his  defence  of  Poetry, 
contained  in  a  letter  to  his  brother  Gherardo:  ^'  The 
very  nature  of  the  region,  the  forest  recesses  to  which  the 
coming  of  dawn  made  me  wish  to  flee  and  there  forget 
my  cares,  and  from  which  only  the  return  of  night 
could  bring  me  home,  suggested  that  I  sing  in  a  wood- 
land strain.  Accordingly  I  began  to  compose  a  pas- 
toral poem  in  twelve  eclogues,  a  thing  that  I  had  long 
had  in  mind.''  As  both  he  and  Gherardo  figure  in  the 
first  one,  he  writes  thus  to  his  brother:  "  This  poetry 
is  of  a  kind  that  cannot  be  understood  unless  a  key  to  it 
is  furnished  by  the  person  who  constructed  it.  So,  as  I 
would  not  have  you  weary  yourself  to  no  purpose,  I 
must  give  you  a  brief  outline,  first  of  what  I  say,  then 
of  what  I  mean  by  it."    I  have  quoted  these  two  re- 

23 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

marks  because  in  no  single  case  anywhere  is  the  con- 
tradiction between  the  pretended  purpose  of  the  pas- 
toral and  the  achievement  more  glaring.  No  pastoral 
poems  are  more  artificial  than  these,  written  though 
they  be  by  a  sincere  lover  of  nature  who  called  himself 
a  "  citizen  of  the  woods.''  But  in  spite  of  their  artificial- 
ity they  are  still  worth  reading,  and  not  merely  for  the 
history  of  the  pastoral,  but  because  they  have  some- 
thing to  say  about  Laura,  and  because,  here  and  there, 
the  poet's  love  of  nature  appears  thinly  veiled,  if  veiled 
at  all. 

Fortimately  these  poems  are  easily  accessible,  not 
merely  in  Avena's  edition  with  a  commentary,  but  also 
in  the  old  one  of  Rossetti  with  an  ItaHan  translation. 
In  that  same  collection  of  Poesie  Minori  del  Petrarca 
are  found  also  the  most  attractive  of  his  Latin  verses, 
his  poetical  epistles.  One  of  these  is  addressed  to 
Virgil,  another  to  Horace,  others  to  his  friends.  One  of 
these  it  is  that  contains  the  strange  and  significant 
passage  in  which  Petrarch  speaks  of  Laura  as  an 
obsession. 

IV 

With  all  Petrarch's  learning,  one  great  field  of  classical 
scholarship  and  literature,  the  Greek,  remained  virtu- 
ally unknown  to  him  —  not,  of  course,  through  his  own 
fault.  Just  how  he  would  have  appreciated  it,  had  he 
known  it  as  well  as  the  Latin,  we  of  course  cannot  say. 
Being  ignorant  of  it,  he  considered  it  inferior  to  the 

24 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

Roman,  and  did  not  realize  how  heavy  was  the  indebt- 
edness of  the  latter  to  the  Greek  writers.  At  the  same 
time,  he  really  longed  to  become  acquainted  with  th-e 
famous  writers  of  Greece,  and  was  apparently  the  first 
man  of  modern  times  to  make  serious  efforts  to  obtain 
their  works.  Hesiod,  Euripides,  and  Sophocles  he 
never  secured;  but  one  cannot  help  feeling  that,  if  he 
had  to  be  satisfied  with  only  two,  as  was  the  case,  he 
could  not  have  done  better  than  acquire  Plato  and 
Homer.  In  addition  he  had  some  translations:  the 
TimcBus,  Phcedo,  and  Meno  of  Plato;  the  Nicomachean 
Ethics  and  Politics  (and  some  other  less  important 
works)  of  Aristotle;  and  then  there  was  the  transla- 
tion of  Homer,  connected  with  which  there  is  quite  a 
story. 

As  Petrarch  is  the  first  seeker  for  manuscripts,  he  is 
also  the  first  ItaHan  humanist  to  take  lessons  in  Greek. 
His  teacher  was  a  Basihan  monk,  Barlaam  of  Seminara, 
who  on  two  occasions  went  on  a  religious  mission  to 
Avignon.  On  his  second  visit,  in  1342,  Petrarch  began 
to  take  daily  lessons  of  this  ablje  and  learned  man, 
hoping  to  fit  himself  to  read  Plato.  The  result  of  his 
studies  was  far  more  modest:  he  learned  to  read  and 
write  the  uncial  hand.  Sixteen  years  later,  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  a  different  type  of  man  at  Padua,  a 
Calabrian,  Leontius  Pilatus  by  name,  who  spoke  Greek 
and  who  claimed  to  be  a  pupil  of  Barlaam  —  a  curious 
and  apparently  rather  repulsive  person,  whom  Boccac- 
cio was  able  to  put  up  with  better  than  could  the  more 

25 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

fastidious  Petrarch.  The  latter,  having  worked  with 
Barlaam  on  Plato,  hoped  through  Pilatus  to  become 
acquainted  with  Homer;  and  this  desire  was  gratified. 
The  Calabrian,  who  was  at  work  on  a  translation  of  the 
Greek  poet,  made  a  preliminary  version  of  a  part  of 
the  Iliad  for  which  Petrarch  paid,  and  which  was  the 
dehght  of  his  old  age. 

Now,  though  Petrarch  lacked  anything  like  an  ade- 
quate knowledge  of  Greek  literature,  and  its  real 
relation  to  Latin,  he  was  a  well-equipped  scholar,  and 
we  have  a  right  to  ask  the  question:  did  he  use  his  tools 
intelHgently  ?  Is  he,  like  Dante,  really  in  advance  of 
men  like  Cassiodorus,  St.  Isidore,  or  Honorius  of 
Autun  ?  In  one  respect  he  disappoints  and  vexes  us: 
he  has  the  pedant's  detestable  habit  of  reeling  off  quo- 
tation after  quotation  from  pagan  authors.  St.  Augus- 
tine (who  himself  in  the  Secretum  is  not  guiltless)  says 
to  Petrarch:  "  When  I  recommend  you  to  think  of  your 
white  hairs,  you  mention  a  crowd  of  illustrious  men 
whose  hair  has  turned  gray.  What  does  that  prove  ? 
If  you  had  told  me  that  they  were  immortal,  you  need 
not,  following  their  example,  have  feared  white  hair. 
Had  I  urged  baldness,  you  would  appropriately  have 
cited  JuUus  Caesar."  Petrarch,  nothing  daunted,  like 
Sancho  Panza  with  his  proverbs,  spins  off  some  more  of 
these  examples.  "  This  wealth  of  instances,"  St. 
Augustine  replies,  "  does  not  displease  me,  providing 
that  it  does  not  prove  negligence,  but  simply  dissipates 
fear  and  sadness."    This  is  not  a  bad  excuse  for  him; 

26 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

and  those  of  us  who  enjoy  Montaigne  can  perhaps 
understand,  if  not  share,  the  pleasure  of  Petrarch's 
contemporaries  in  such  displays.  But  the  trouble  is 
that  in  the  case  of  too  many  erudite  writers  they  are 
mere  displays,  estabUsh  nothing,  and  are  apt  to  betray 
little  discrimination  on  the  part  of  the  quoter.  It  is  to 
Petrarch's  credit  that  as  a  scholar  he  really  does  show 
discrimination.  He  is  not  a  Valla;  but  he  too  has  a 
desire  to  get  at  the  truth,  the  fact,  and  not  to  be  led 
astray  by  great  men.  One  of  his  grievances  against 
the  scholastics  is  their  fondness  for  mere  verbal  quib- 
bhng,  for  attempting  to  erect  huge  structures  without 
much  foundation,  for  their  continual  citation  of  Aris- 
totle as  proof  positive  of  a  statement.  These  ignorant 
men,  he  claims,  are  utterly  unworthy  disciples  of  a  very 
great  but  at  the  same  time  not  infallible  teacher. 
Aristotle,  he  says,  was  a  man  of  exalted  genius,  who 
not  only  lectured,  but  wrote  on  themes  of  the  greatest 
importance.  How  otherwise  can  we  explain  so  vast  an 
array  of  works,  involving  such  prolonged  labor,  and 
prepared  with  such  supreme  care  amid  so  much  serious 
preoccupation  ?  "  Yet  in  spite  of  his  greatness  and 
his  vast  knowledge,  1  judge  him  to  have  been  a  man, 
and  therefore  subject  to  ignorance  of  some  things,  nay, 
even  of  many." 

There  is,  however,  one  philosopher  whose  praises  he 
sings  without,  or  almost  without,  mental  reservation: 
it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  this  is  Plato.  Pe- 
trarch's advocacy  of  this  sage  is  a  matter  of  great  im- 

27 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

portance  and  significance  in  the  history  of  the  Renais- 
sance. It  was  not  perversity  that  made  him  set  up 
Plato  as  a  rival  to  the  philosopher  of  the  scholastics. 
Plato's  eloquence  partly  accounts  for  Petrarch's  dis- 
cipleship;  and,  besides,  Plato  was  greatly  admired  by 
writers,  pagan  and  Christian,  whom  Petrarch  himself 
loved  —  by  St.  Augustine  above  all.  Petrarch  lacked 
the  philosopher's  mind,  but  he  studied  with  earnestness 
and  intelligence  those  of  Plato's  works  which  were 
accessible  to  him. 

Now,  leaving  philosophy,  there  are  other  subjects  in 
which  our  author  shows  some  independence.  I  think 
"  some  "  is  the  word  to  apply,  especially  in  connection 
with  a  pseudo-science  which  flourished  vigorously  in 
Petrarch's  day,  and  which,  if  it  is  aging  now,  is  enjoying 
a  very  green  old  age.  This  is  astrology.  The  best 
place  to  get  an  expression  of  Petrarch's  views  is  in  a 
letter  (Senilia,  iii,  i)  written  to  Boccaccio.  "  Shut  your 
eyes  to  illusions,"  he  says,  "  your  ears  to  nonsense; 
avoid  physicians,  flee  astrologers;  the  ones  do  injury 
to  the  body,  the  others  to  the  soul.  If  the  air  is  infected 
by  a  change  of  nature,  and  by  hidden  causes,  or  if,  as 
they  say,  an  unknown  constellation  pursues  us,  that 
evil  will  cease  when  the  corruption  has  been  burned 
away  and  absorbed  by  the  sun's  rays,  or  when  the  plague 
shall  have  been  turned  aside.  But  supposing  that  one 
or  both  of  these  things  is  destined  to  arrive,  it  is  not  the 
investigator  of  the  planets  who  knows  it  in  advance, 
it  is  the  Creator  of  Heaven,  or  possibly  some  pious, 

28 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

learned  man  to  whom  the  Lord  shall  have  revealed 
it,  and  not  Saturn  or  Mars."  As  has  been  shown  by 
Soldati,  who  published  in  1906  a  work  on  La  Poesia 
Astrologica  net  Quattrocento,  a  careful  reading  of  this 
letter  shows  that  Petrarch  did  not  set  out  to  confute 
the  principles  of  astrology,  but  only  wished  to  confound 
the  necromancers  of  his  day.  Even  with  them  he  was 
sometimes  lenient;  and  once,  when  one  of  them  ad- 
mitted that  he  thought  exactly  as  Petrarch  did,  but  had 
to  live,  the  poet  said  nothing  more.  Perhaps  it  is 
unwise,  then,  to  give  Petrarch  very  much  credit  for  his 
attitude  towards  astrology. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  Petrarch  couples  physicians 
with  necromancers.  Here  again  it  may  be  well  to  be  a 
little  chary  with  one's  praise,  though  Voigt  says  that 
our  poet  deserves  a  high  place  in  the  history  of  medicine 
for  being  "  the  first  to  attack  the  old  system  with  the 
arms  of  skepticism."  In  other  realms  it  is  possible  to 
be  more  unreserved  in  one's  approval.  From  lack  of 
observation,  love  of  the  mysterious,  the  marvellous, 
and  the  extraordinary,  a  great  amount  of  pseudo- 
scientific  material  had  been  accumulated  during  the 
Middle  Ages,  which  nowadays  we  regard  as  very  de- 
pressing or  very  amusing,  according  to  our  mood  or 
point  of  view.  Petrarch  was  no  profound  student  of 
natural  sciences  (although,  loving  his  gardens  as  he  did, 
he  knew  something  about  plants),  but  his  native  good 
sense  revolted  against  the  statements  of  the  bestiaries 
as  to  the  nature  and  habits  of  beasts,  and  against  the 

29 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

lapidaries  with  their  wonderful  tales  of  the  mystic 
properties  of  stones. 

It  is,  however,  as  historian  or  biographer  that  he  on 
the  whole  appears  at  his  best  among  scholars.  In  this 
field  Nolhac,  one  of  the  sanest  of  Petrarch  scholars, 
gives  him  very  high  praise.  '^  In  his  De  Viris  Illustrihus 
he  produced  the  first  Renaissance  work  dedicated  to 
Roman  history.  At  the  same  time,  he  restored  the 
ancient  art  of  biography,  showing  remarkable  care  in 
the  acquisition  of  exact  information,  and,  whenever 
possible,  checking  up  other  historians  by  comparing 
the  different  testimony."  So  much  for  the  evidence  of 
a  proper  conception  of  the  duties  of  a  historian.  Nolhac 
makes,  in  connection  with  his  historical  studies,  another 
remark  which  is  most  suggestive:  "  Les  races,  les 
nations,  le  developpement  des  empires  I'interessent 
peu,  Findividu  seul  le  passionne." 

Books  were  not  the  only  memorials  of  antiquity  that 
Petrarch  loved.  Like  nearly  all  humanists,  he  was  fond 
of  collecting  coins  or  gems,  and  naturally  his  imagina- 
tion was  kindled  by  the  sight  of  ruins;  but  besides  his 
concern  with  the  past,  he  was  interested  (and  this  is  a 
fine  thing  about  the  Renaissance  men  in  general)  in  the 
world  about  him.  In  a  letter  to  his  friend  Francesco 
Bruni  {Senilia,  rx,  2),  he  says  he  has  spent  nearly  all  his 
life  traveUing;  why,  he  cannot  say,  but  it  is  a  fact.  One 
cause  was  his  restlessness,  which  kept  him  moving;  and 
then,  too,  it  really  delighted  him  to  see  new  things. 
"  Certainly/'  he  declares,  "  I  have  seen  more  things 

30 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

than  I  should  have  seen  had  I  remained  at  home  within 
the  walls  of  my  city,  and  I  have  learned  something.  On 
the  other  hand,  this  time  was  stolen  from  letters;  and 
if  this  thought  had  not  kept  in  check  my  youthful 
ardor,  I  assure  you  that,  fearless  and  eager  as  I  was  to 
see  new  things,  I  should  have  travelled  as  far  as  China, 
India,  and  Ceylon.  Neither  fatigue  nor  fear  of  the  sea 
or  any  other  peril  could  have  kept  me  back:  what  held 
me  was  the  dread  of  losing  time  and  of  distracting  my 
mind  from  studies,  thinking  that  I  should  have  re- 
turned with  my  head  full  of  cities,  rivers,  mountains, 
woods  that  I  had  seen,  but  empty  of  the  doctrine  of 
letters.  Therefore  I  learned  to  visit  those  distant 
regions,  not  on  ship  or  on  horseback,  not  trudging 
along  interminable  roads  just  to  see  them  once,  but  on 
a  small  map,  travelHng  with  the  aid  of  imagination  and 
books  in  such  a  way  that  at  my  pleasure  I  could  go  and 
return  in  the  short  space  of  an  hour,  safe  and  sound, 
unwearied,  without  bother,  expense,  or  such  nuisances 
as  thorns,  mud,  and  dust."  In  his  restlessness  and  his 
desire  to  keep  moving  (which  of  course  is  only  one  side 
of  his  nature),  Petrarch  is  a  forerunner  of  the  wander- 
ing humanist  of  a  later  day,  Itahan  or  German.  In 
his  love  of  travel  and  his  eagerness  to  see  remote 
countries,  he  is  the  predecessor  of  the  great  discoverers. 
Even  as  a  fireside  traveller  he  is  important,  for  his 
Itinerarium  Syriacum  marks  a  date  in  geographical 
studies.  In  his  remarks  on  art,  history,  and  natural 
beauties,  in  connection  with  places  he  has  occasion 

31 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

to  mention,  he  anticipates  Flavio  Biondo  and  ^Eneas 
Silvius. 

Petrarch  was  a  prohfic  writer,  and  it  is  out  of  the 
question  to  try  to  treat  here  his  works  in  detail.  He 
is  one  of  the  bilingual  authors  of  the  Renaissance.  I 
have  already  discussed  his  letters  and  his  Latin  verse, 
and  shall  now  say  a  word  of  his  other  Latin  prose 
works.  Three  of  these  I  shall  httle  more  than  mention: 
the  De  Otio  Religiosorum,  the  De  Remediis  utriusque 
Fortunae,  and  one  which  has  a  very  suggestive  and 
alluring  title,  the  De  Vita  Solitaria.  This  promises 
much,  but  to  the  modern  layman  it  is  disappointing, 
for,  like  the  first  two,  it  is  purely  reUgious  in  tone;  and 
yet  in  it,  and  in  all  of  them,  one  can  find  the  Renais- 
sance man.  It  is  not  wholly  the  medieval  ascetic  who 
is  talking  to  you.  Finally,  the  three  form  a  necessary 
complement  to  works  like  the  poems  of  the  Canzoniere 
for  any  one  who  wishes  to  study  Petrarch's  character. 
Of  the  De  Viris  Illustrihus  (a  history  of  Rome  with 
formal  biographies  of  her  illustrious  men)  I  have 
already  spoken.  To  us,  his  desire  to  glorify  Rome  is  of 
course  of  great  significance.  The  principal  weakness  of 
the  book  is  the  author's  tendency  to  moralize.  The 
Libri  Rerum  Memorandarum,  I  should  say,  would  appeal 
to  a  much  larger  circle  of  readers,  and  has  for  me  a  very 
special  interest.  This  work  consists  of  a  series  of  anec- 
dotes illustrating  certain  human  quahties  and  virtues, 
and  here  we  have  Petrarch  the  novehst.  Good  examples 
are  certain  frequently  quoted  stories  of  Dante. 

32 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

There  is  one  work  which  has  disappeared,  much  to 
the  regret  of  every  student  of  the  Renaissance.  That  is 
the  comedy,  Philologia,  which  he  wrote  when  a  very 
young  man.  It  would  appear  to  have  been  the  first 
humanistic  Renaissance  comedy,  just  as  the  Eccerinis 
is  the  first  tragedy.  According  to  Creizenach,  Petrarch 
seems  to  have  been  especially  fond  of  Plautus  and 
Terence,  more  so  than  were  any  of  the  scholars  imme- 
diately before  his  day.  What  is  more,  he  appears  to 
have  heartily  enjoyed  the  fun  in  Plautus,  and,  because 
of  it,  for  some  time  to  have  preferred  him  to  Terence. 
Nevertheless,  Boccaccio  says  his  pky  shows  more 
strongly  the  influence  of  Terence.  It  has  a  forbidding 
title,  which  can  hardly  have  meant  the  study,  philo- 
logy; rather  it  was  the  name  of  a  girl.  Even  then  the 
choice  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  feUcitous.  Boccac- 
cio calls  it  the  PhilostratuSj  and  another  name  given  it 
was  the  Tranquillus.  Creizenach  gathers  from  these 
names  that  the  piece  was  more  than  a  mere  close  imi- 
tation of  Terence,  and  the  evidence  of  other  humanistic 
comedies,  written  later,  makes  this  hypothesis  seem 
probable.  As  to  its  merits,  Boccaccio  says  that  it  was 
most  beautiful  and  that,  if  it  were  better  known,  it 
would  probably  be  preferred  to  its  models.  This  is  the 
generous,  imdiscriminating  praise  one  might  expect 
from  Boccaccio. 

There  is,  fortunately,  one  work  of  Petrarch's  existing, 
which,  because  of  a  certain  dramatic  power  and  not  a 
Uttle  humor  (a  quality  we  miss  too  often  in  Petrarch), 

33 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

rather  inclines  us  to  think  that  the  comedy  may  have 
been  really  entertaining.  This  work  is  once  more  the 
Secretum.  It  is  in  dialogue  form,  consisting  of  a  collo- 
quy between  the  author  and  St.  Augustine;  but  nothing 
less  resembles  comedy  than  the  opening  words. 

A.  —  What  are  you  doing,  pitiable  creature  ?  Of  what 
are  you  dreaming  ?  What  do  you  expect  ?  Do 
you  not  remember  that  you  are  mortal  ? 

P.  —  I  do  remember,  and  the  thought  never  comes  to 
me  without  making  me  shudder. 

What  is  comic  in  its  way  is  the  severity  and  ill-concealed 
contempt  with  which  St.  Augustine  treats  Petrarch. 
It  reminds  one  of  the  way  in  which  Virgil  addresses 
Fulgentius.  Try  as  hard  as  he  may  to  escape  the 
probing  of  Augustine,  the  latter  ruthlessly  pins  him 
down: 

A.  —  We  should  ever  remember  that  we  are  mortal. 

P.  —  Unless  I  am  mistaken,  no  one  thinks  of  this  more 

than  I  do. 
A.  —  There  is  another  bit  of  dodging. 
P.  —  What  ?     Am  I  lying  again  ? 
A.  —  I  should  prefer  to  speak  more  politely. 
P.  —  But  you  mean  that,  don't  you  ? 
A.  —  Yes,  nothing  else. 

Sometimes  Petrarch  grows  tired  of  wrigghng,  and, 
being  harassed,  turns  on  his  tormentor.  For  instance, 
he  says  in  one  place:  "  What  do  you  want  me  to  do  ? 
Despair  ?  "  Augustine  replies:  "  Try  everything  else 
first.    Here  in  two  words  is  the  best  advice  I  can  give 

34 


PETRARCH  THE  AUTHOR 

you.''  And  then  he  begins  a  fine  sonorous  tirade,  only 
to  be  interrupted  by  Petrarch  asking  urbanely :  "  While 
the  physician  is  haranguing,  would  you  permit  the  sick 
man,  who  knows  that  he  is  sick,  to  put  in  a  word  ?  " 

On  the  whole,  the  sparring  between  the  two  men  is 
very  well  done.  The  style,  alert  and  vivacious,  affords 
good  reason  for  believing  that  the  Philologia,  if,  com- 
pared with  other  humanistic  comedies,  no  masterpiece 
of  dramatic  composition,  was  at  least  their  equal  and 
perhaps  their  superior  in  cleverness. 


35 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 


Like  Dante,  Petrarch  was  of  Florentine  blood;  Florence 
is,  then,  the  mother  of  the  last  great  man  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  of  the  one  who  is  so  often  called  the  first  man 
of  the  Renaissance.  However,  this  Petrarch  who  called 
himself  the  child  of  two  eras,  spoke  perhaps  even  truer 
than  he  realized.  He  spent  the  major  part  of  his  earlier 
life  in  France,  the  home  of  medieval  culture.  For  many 
years  he  studied  law  at  the  great  schools  of  Mont- 
pellier  and  Bologna,  and,  while,  if  we  are  to  believe 
him,  he  disliked  the  subject,  he  showed  considerable 
aptitude  for  it.  When  his  father  and  mother  died, 
thrown  upon  the  world,  he  entered  the  Church.  His 
relations  with  the  Chiurch  might  at  the  first  inspection 
seem  purely  external  and  superficial;  but,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  this  apparent  worldUng,  who  so  loved  classic 
literature  and  the  society  of  ladies,  was  truly  rehgious, 
religious  in  the  medieval  sense.  Though  he  was  one  of 
the  long  line  of  patriotic  Italians  who  looked  forward  to 
the  restoration  of  Rome  to  its  former  glory,  and  though 
he  himself  played  some  part  —  a  part  more  showy  than 
important  —  in  poHtical  fife,  nevertheless,  compared 
with  Latini,  Mussato,  and  Dante,  he  shows  himself  less 
versatile  than  they.  He  is  essentially  a  man  of  private 
life.    As  a  student,  his  knowledge  is  not  so  vast  as  that 

39 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

of  Roger  Bacon,  but  he  is  a  real  scholar,  with  wide 
interests;  and  he  furnishes  the  first  example,  since 
antiquity,  of  a  man  surrendering  himself  entirely  to  the 
cultivation  of  letters.  It  is  not  altogether  easy  to  know 
how  to  begin  further  treatment  of  him :  as  the  restorer  of 
intelhgent  appreciation  of  the  classics;  as  the  apostle 
of  a  new  conception  of  man's  place  in  the  universe,  and 
of  the  individuaFs  relations  to  God  and  to  his  fellows; 
as  a  literary  craftsman,  whether  in  Latin  or  in  the  ver- 
nacular; as  a  scholar;  or  as  a  poet.  In  his  own  behef, 
it  was  as  a  humanist  that  he  was  destined  to  obtain 
fame.  Nowadays,  however,  according  to  general 
opinion,  his  fame  rests  upon  his  Italian  verse,  which  he 
affected  to  depise.  Another  view,  very  stoutly  upheld, 
a  recent  one,  is  that,  however  remarkable  his  poetry  may 
be,  and  whatever  its  influence  in  France  and  England, 
he  is  still  more  significant  as  a  herald  of  new  ideals 
which  he  exemplifies  as  weU  as  preaches,  that  he  is,  as 
he  has  often  been  dubbed,  the  first  modern  man.  One 
is  sometimes  tempted  to  apply  that  title  to  Frederick 
II;  but  probably  it  is  more  justly  bestowed  on  Pe- 
trarch, for  there  is  certainly  some  truth  in  a  statement 
by  Geiger,  to  the  effect  that  Petrarch  deserves  that 
name  because,to  a  greater  extent  than  any  other  imme- 
diate predecessors  of  the  modern  era,  he  studied  himself, 
and  pubHshed  to  the  world  at  large  the  results  of  his 
observations. 

Let  us,  then,  begin  with  Petrarch  the  individual, 
and  afterwards  we  may  study  from  different  angles  his 

40 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

ideas  and  his  work.  So  far  as  abundance  of  sources  is 
concerned,  there  should  be  no  difficulty  in  arriving  at  a 
correct  appreciation  of  his  character.  The  amount  of 
material  that  we  can  draw  upon  is  really  enormous,  and 
this  material  is  of  all  kinds,  directly  or  indirectly  auto- 
biographical. He  wrote  a  short  autobiographical 
sketch.  In  his  letters  written  during  mature  life,  he 
constantly  refers  back,  in  some  detail,  to  events  in  his 
youth.  His  Secretum  is  a  fourteenth  century  contribu- 
tion to  the  genre  of  the  Hterary  confession.  His  love 
poetry,  of  course,  is  confessional  as  well.  When  one 
becomes  acquainted  with  him,  there  is  a  constant 
temptation  to  feel  that  he  never  wrote  a  Hne  that  was 
not  intended  to  be  a  presentation  of  self  before  the  eyes 
of  a  contemporary  public.  This  is  one  of  the  things 
which  distinguish  his  display  of  individuaUty  from  that 
of  Dante.  Like  Horace,  he  is  deHberately  raising  a 
monument  to  himself,  more  durable  than  brass.  He  had 
a  perfect  right  to  do  this;  but  unfortunately  an  un- 
pleasant impression  is  almost  inevitably  left  upon  the 
reader  by  his  intense  self-consciousness.  You  too  often 
feel,  while  he  is  making  his  confidences,  that  he  is  re- 
garding you  out  of  the  comer  of  his  eye  to  see  how  you 
take  them. 

Again,  the  nature  which  he  lays  bare  before  you  does 
not  at  first  seem  to  be  essentially  a  very  noble  one. 
Dante  is  far  from  perfect;  at  times  he  is  harsh  and  vin- 
dictive; yet  he  always  compels  respect.  But  in 
Petrarch's  case  (and  the  same  is  true  of  Cicero,  St. 

41 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

Jerome,  and  Rousseau)  we  are  often  repelled  by  his 
pettiness.  This  we  see  in  his  disputes  with  his  contem- 
poraries. Even  when  his  cause  is  good,  he  is  guilty, 
like  so  many  later  humanists,  of  treating  his  opponents 
not  merely  as  mistaken  men,  but  as  personal  enemies, 
who  desire  to  tarnish  his  fame;  and  his  shrill,  passionate 
self-defence,  while  not  so  bad  as  the  furious  invective  of 
Poggio  and  Valla,  does  him  no  credit.  One  thing  is 
worse,  and  that  is  his  mock  humility;  compared  with 
an  affected  meekness  that  sounds  frequently  like 
whining,  the  invectives  of  the  humanists  just  mentioned 
are  like  exhilarating  peals  of  artillery. 

II 

But,  leaving  this  subject,  let  us  consider  Petrarch's 
attitude  towards  solitude  and  nature,  towards  Dante, 
towards  friends,  towards  Gloria  and  Laura;  and  let 
us  begin  with  the  first.  It  was,  as  has  been  said,  some- 
thing new  for  a  man  to  devote  himself  to  pure  letters  as 
his  life's  work;  it  was  also  something  new  for  a  man  to 
seek  retirement  in  the  country  for  the  reasons  which 
prompted  Petrarch.  Many  men  before  him  had  left 
the  city  and  gone  into  some  retreat  to  avoid  temptation, 
to  have  an  opportunity  to  give  themselves  up  to  reli- 
gious meditation;  but  for  them  a  desert  would  have  an- 
swered as  well  as  Vaucluse,  or  even  better.  Petrarch's 
fondness  for  this  place  finds  its  parallel  in  the  love  of 
Horace,  Cicero,  and  other  Romans  for  their  country 
villas,  and  a  suspicious  person  might  ask:  did  Petrarch 

42 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

really  hate  the  city  and  courts;  did  he  really  love  the 
country;  was  he  not,  after  all,  doing  Uttle  more  than 
imitate  the  men  of  antiquity,  or  doing  something 
which,  because  of  its  strangeness,  would  attract  admir- 
ing attention  ?  We  can  understand  perhaps  his  dis- 
liking Avignon,  though  it  may  not  have  been  nearly  so 
bad  as  he  describes;  but  if  his  hatred  for  town  Hfe  was 
genuine,  why  did  he  spend  so  much  time  at  Parma,  at 
Padua,  at  Venice,  and,  above  all,  not  a  few  years  at  the 
court  of  the  Visconti  ?  Why  should  the  man  who,  if  he 
did  not  implant  seeds  of  ambition  in  the  heart  of  his 
friend  Rienzi  to  resuscitate  the  repubUc  of  Rome,  cer- 
tainly was  keenly  in  sympathy  with  the  attempt,  and 
regretted  its  failure,  why  should  the  descendant  of  a 
Florentine,  and  the  object  almost  of  worship  on  the  part 
of  the  Florentines  of  his  day,  take  up  his  abode  with  a 
despotic  family,  Florence's  most  dangerous  enemy  ? 
Certainly  Boccaccio  and  other  Florentine  friends  were 
grieved,  if  not  furious.  One  man,  Gano  da  CoUe,  com- 
posed a  sonnet  on  the  poet's  apostasy,  had  it  memo- 
rized by  a  jongleur,  and  then  sent  the  performer  to 
declaim  it  in  Petrarch's  presence.  Apparently  Petrarch 
was  not  much  affected.  In  a  letter  to  his  friend,  Fran- 
cesco degli  Apostoli,  he  declares  that  he  was  absolutely 
forced  to  go  there  by  the  condition  of  his  private  affairs, 
by  the  wishes  (which  were  really  comimands)  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Milan,  who  said  that  all  he  desired  of 
him  was  his  presence,  which  would  honor  him  and  his 
states.    In  1904,  at  the  celebration  of  the  six-hundredth 

43 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

anniversary  of  Petrarch's  birth  at  Arezzo,  Novati  under- 
took to  defend  Petrarch  for  living  with  the  Visconti, 
and,  referring  to  the  inconsistency  of  this  lover  of  a 
rural  life  Uving  at  a  court,  maintained  that  Petrarch 
continued  unchanged  his  train  of  Ufe,  and  that,  after 
all,  from  1334  on  there  was  no  real  court  in  Milan. 
Suppose  there  was  not,  suppose  that  Petrarch's  feeling 
against  the  Visconti  could  hardly  be  as  strong  as  that 
of  the  Florentines,  who  had  just  cause  to  fear;  suppose 
the  Visconti,  whose  reputation  indeed  is  particularly 
odious,  were  no  worse  than  other  tyrants,  nevertheless 
they  were  tyrants;  and  Milan  was  a  great  city.  Although 
we  must  not  imagine  Petrarch  dwelling  in  a  narrow, 
malodorous,  noisy  city  street,  nevertheless  his  Hfe  with 
the  Visconti  must  have  been  very  different  from  his 
existence  earlier  at  Vaucluse,  or  later  at  Arqua. 

But  it  is  quite  easy  to  make  altogether  too  much  of 
Petrarch's  inconsistency.  We  know  perfectly  well  how 
possible  and  natural  it  is  to  love  both  city  and  country, 
and  how  greatly  our  pleasure  is  heightened  by  going 
from  one  to  the  other.  Of  course  Petrarch  is  largely  to 
blame  for  the  severe  criticism  that  has  been  meted  out 
to  him.  He  invited  it  by  the  intemperance  of  his 
statements.  We  will  not  take  him  at  his  word,  then, 
when  he  indulges  in  an  invective  against  Hfe  in  a  city. 
Must  we  also  be  a  little  on  our  guard  when  he  praises 
the  country  ?  There  is,  for  instance,  a  letter  (Fam., 
rx,  14)  written  to  a  certain  priest  of  Piacenza  named 
Luca,  in  which  Petrarch  makes  this  significant  remark: 

44 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

"  We  will  withdraw  from  the  world  and  live  concealed, 
but  not  without  glory.  Unless  I  am  deceived  in  my 
hopes,  our  fame  will  resound  all  the  more  glorious, 
coming  from  a  solitary  retreat  rather  than  from  a 
populous  city.  It  will  issue  forth  from  every  place  to 
the  torment  of  the  envious."  There  is  another  letter 
{Fam.j  xn,  12),  a  most  remarkable  one,  in  which  he 
complains  of  the  conduct  of  Bishop  Acciaiuoh.  He 
writes:  "No  one  keeps  his  word  any  longer  in  the 
world.  Who  would  have  beHeved  that  the  bishop  of 
Florence,  who  is  considered  the  sincerest  person  on 
earth,  could  have  wished  to  deceive  me  ?  But  this  is 
always  my  fate,  to  be  deceived  by  every  one.  He  had 
promised  to  come  to  Vaucluse  to  admire  this  place, 
famous  throughout  the  world,  and  to  see  what  was  the 
tenor  of  my  life  in  this  solitude.  Perhaps  he  scorned 
dining  with  a  poet,  and  disdained  to  honor  with  his 
presence  this  spot,  where  one  day  the  glory  of  our  age, 
Robert,  king  of  Sicily,  and  after  him  many  cardinals, 
lords,  and  princes  came  sometimes  to  see  the  spring, 
sometimes  (I  do  not  hesitate  to  boast  a  little  before 
you)  to  see  me.  Possibly  this  spring,  which  is  unparal- 
leled in  the  opinion  of  the  world,  and  my  person  —  not 
the  vilest  on  earth  —  were  not  of  sufficient  worth  in  the 
Bishop's  eyes  to  induce  him  to  go  three  miles  out  of  his 
way  to  see  them.  True  it  is  that  I  was  not  worthy  of 
such  a  guest,  but  surely  he  was  worthy  of  being  taken 
at  his  word  ...  I  had  written  as  far  as  this  and  was 
going  to  continue  in  this  vein,  when  a  loud  noise  at  the 

45 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

door  told  me  that  the  Bishop  had  arrived.  So  a  day 
does  not  pass  which  does  not  prove  to  me  and  teach  me 
how  vain  are  mortal  cares,  and  how  idle  are  our  lamen- 
tations." 

"  Povero  Messer  Francesco! "  says  Fracassetti  in  his 
note  to  this  letter,  which,  with  its  horrid  twang  and 
display  of  temper,  shows  Petrarch  at  his  very  worst, 
and  would  lead  one  to  believe  that  he  was  totally  bereft 
of  humor.  Both  letters  might  easily  make  one  doubt 
whether  he  really  loved  soHtude  and  the  country  for 
their  own  sake.  Did  he  not  seek  them  rather  because, 
as  he  writes  to  Luca,  doing  something  unusual  and 
standing  apart  from  the  crowd,  which  he  bitterly  hated, 
he  would  be  more  conspicuous  ?  It  was  flattering  to 
any  poet  to  be  kindly  received  by  nobles  and  kings; 
but  what  was  that  compared  to  the  glory  of  having 
them  come  out  of  their  way  to  see  him  ?  This  is  all 
true,  but  not  the  whole  truth. 

Petrarch  had  more  than  one  reason  for  living  in  the 
country;  but  I  am  certain  that  he  loved  nature  to  an 
extraordinary  degree.  Of  this  love,  his  chmbing  of 
Mount  Ventoux  is  usually  cited  as  a  proof,  and  with 
some  reason,  for  not  many  men  before  the  nineteenth 
century  cared  for  mountain  ascents.  As  additional 
evidence  may  be  quoted  some  passages  from  his  works, 
prose  and  verse.  In  the  Secretum,  St.  Augustine  says 
to  Petrarch:  "  Do  you  remember  with  what  pleasure 
you  used  to  wander  about  the  country  ?  Now,  l)ang 
upon  the  grass  in  the  meadows,  you  hstened  to  the 

46 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

murmur  of  the  stream  as  it  broke  over  the  pebbles ;  now, 
sitting  on  the  bare  hills,  you  measured  freely  with  your 
glance  the  plain  extended  at  your  feet.  Now,  sleeping 
sweetly  under  the  trees  in  a  valley,  you  enjoyed  your 
beloved  silence."  But  you  may  think  this  is  mere 
rhetoric.  I  do  not.  In  his  poetical  epistle  to  Giacomo 
of  Colonna  {Ep.,  i,  7)  he  says:  "  Often  I  spend  whole 
days  in  retired  spots;  in  my  right  hand  is  my  pen,  in 
my  left  the  paper,  and  my  mind  teems  with  many 
thoughts.  How  irksome  it  is  for  me  then,  if  any  one 
appears  in  a  shady  path,  and  salutes  me  in  a  low  voice, 
when  I  am  absorbed  in  other  things  and  meditating 
lofty  ideas!  How  delightful  it  is  to  imbibe  the  silence 
of  the  deep  forest!  All  murmurs  jar  upon  me,  except 
the  rippUng  of  the  stream,  or  when  the  breeze,  striking 
my  paper,  causes  it  to  rustle,  making  it  seem  as  though 
the  poem  itself  were  singing  softly.  Frequently  my 
lengthening  shadow  on  the  ground  tells  me  the  lateness 
of  the  hour,  that  it  is  time  to  return  home,  and  night 
forces  me  to  hasten  my  steps.  Phoebus  now  sunk  to 
rest,  Hesperus  or  the  rising  moon  shows  me  my  path 
and  saves  me  from  the  briars."  "  Alas,"  from  another 
letter,  "  how  many  times  during  the  summer  I  have  got 
up  at  midnight,  and,  to  avoid  waking  my  sleeping 
servants,  have  gone  off  alone  in  the  moonlight,  now  tol 
the  fields,  now  to  the  mountains!  How  many  times  at 
that  hour  I  have  entered  with  a  shuddering  dehght  that 
terrible  cavern  where  the  Sorgue  rises,  a  place  which 
makes  one  tremble  even  if  one  visit  it  accompanied,  in 

47 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

broad  daylight!  If  you  wish  to  know  the  cause  of  so 
much  boldness,  learn  that  I  am  not  afraid  of  ghosts  or 
phantoms.  No  wolf  has  been  seen  in  the  valley,  and 
nothing  is  to  be  feared  from  man.  Herdsmen  pass  the 
night  in  the  meadows,  and  fishers  along  the  rivers,  the 
former  singing,  the  latter  silent.  Both  treat  me  at  any 
hour  of  the  day  with  the  greatest  respect."  Compare 
with  this  passage  the  lovely  sestina,  Non  ha  tanti 
animali  il  mar  fra  Vonde. 

This  appreciation  of  the  beauty  of  the  country  at 
night  is  not  over-common  nowadays,  at  least  it  is 
seldom  carried  so  far  as  it  went  with  Petrarch.  There 
are  plenty  of  people  who  hke  to  walk  in  the  moonhght 
or  starHght,  but  few  who,  after  once  having  gone  to 
bed,  care  to  get  up  again  and  wander  forth.  Never 
since  reading  this  passage  have  I  doubted  the  sincerity 
of  Petrarch's  love  for  nature.  When  we  speak  of  Dante's 
attitude  towards  it,  we  lay  stress  upon  his  amazing 
skill  as  a  landscape  painter.  He  uses  his  brush  with  the 
certain  mastery  of  a  Japanese  artist,  or  a  Sargent. 
Each  stroke  is  swift  and  unerring;  there  is  not  one 
which  is  unnecessary.  In  addition  to  this,  there  is 
occasionally  in  Dante  the  sentimental  note,  a  feehng 
for  a  harmony  existing  between  man's  emotions  and 
nature  in  her  different  manifestations.  You  may 
remember  that  incomparable  passage  where  he  says: 
"  It  was  now  the  hour  that  turns  back  desire  in  those 
who  sail  the  sea  and  softens  their  hearts,  on  the  day 
when  they  have  said  to  their  sweet  friends  '  Farewell,' 

48 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

and  that  pierces  the  new  pilgrim  with  love,  if  he  hears 
from  afar  a  bell  that  seems  to  mourn  the  dying  day." 
And  then  comes  the  singing  of  the  hymn,  Te  lucis 
ante  terminum.  In  Petrarch's  works,  beautiful  pic- 
tures are,  on  the  whole,  comparatively  rare;  I  think 
too  much  has  been  made  of  them.  What  one  does  find, 
as  might  be  imagined,  is  the  modern,  sentimental  note 
to  a  striking  degree.  While  the  Hterary  recluse  loved 
his  hermitage,  among  other  reasons,  because  it  brought 
him  more  strikingly  before  the  eyes  of  the  pubHc  of 
men,  another  motive  took  the  place  of  this  in  moments 
when  he  would  have  willingly  forgotten  his  human 
audience.  For  him,  as  for  a  primitive  race  of  men,  or 
for  such  a  people  as  the  modem  Greeks,  all  nature 
was  animate,  shared  his  joys  and  pleasures,  was  his 
confidant. 

This  aspect  of  Petrarch's  love  for  nature  we  find  best 
expressed  in  the  Canzoniere.  There  are  many  examples 
of  it.  Here  are  one  or  two.  In  Mai  non  fui  in  parte 
ove  si  chiar  vedessi,  written  after  the  death  of  Laura,  he 
says  of  Vaucluse:  "  Never  was  I  in  a  place  where  so 
clearly  I  saw  her  whom  I  might  rightly  long  to  see,  now 
that  I  could  see  her  no  more;  nor  where  I  had  such 
liberty  to  fill  the  heavens  with  my  cries  of  grief.  Never 
did  I  see  a  vale  with  so  many  secret  nooks  where  I  could 
sigh  in  solitude.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  Love  in  Cyprus 
or  on  any  other  strand  had  so  sweet  an  abode.  The 
waters  speak  of  love,  and  the  breeze,  and  the  boughs, 
the  little  birds,  the  fishes,  the  flowers,  the  grass,  all 

49 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

together  praying  that  I  continue  to  love.  But  you, 
calling  to  me  from  the  sky,  by  the  memory  of  your 
bitter  death  entreat  me  to  scorn  the  world  and  all  its 
sweet  snares."  Observe  here  the  curious  role  which  the 
fickle  Petrarch  makes  nature  play.  Two  other  pas- 
sages, which  I  will  now  quote,  do  more  credit  to  his 
honesty.  They  belong  to  a  class  the  best-known 
examples  of  which  are  perhaps  Lamartine's  Lac  and 
Musset's  Souvenir  J  the  Hterature  of  impassioned  recol- 
lection. The  first  is  the  sonnet,  Valle,  che  de^  lamenti 
miei  se^  plena:  "  Valley,  full  of  my  lamentations,  river 
often  swollen  with  my  tears,  denizens  of  the  woods, 
animals  of  the  forest,  beautiful  birds,  fish  imprisoned 
by  either  bank,  air  serene  and  warmed  by  my  sighs, 
sweet  path  turned  so  bitter,  hills  which  once  did  please 
me  and  now  give  pain,  whither  again  love  leads  me 
from  old  habit,  well  do  I  recognize  in  you  the  old  self, 
but  not,  alas!  in  me,  who,  after  so  happy  a  life,  am 
become  the  abode  of  endless  grief."  The  second  is 
Sento  Vaura  mia  antica:  "  I  feel  the  breezes  of  old,  I 
see  appear  the  sweet  hills  where  my  light  was  born, 
which,  so  long  as  Heaven  willed,  made  eager  and  glad  my 
eyes,  now  sad  and  wet.  O  fallen  hopes,  0  idle  thoughts ! 
Widowed  is  the  grass,  turbid  are  the  streams,  and  empty 
and  cold  the  nest  in  which  she  lay,  and  in  which  I  five, 
desiring  death. ' '  I  have  quoted  enough  to  prove,  I  think, 
that  Petrarch's  love  for  nature,  and,  with  it,  solitude, 
was  far  from  being  a  sham;  and  I  have  tried  to  point 
out  that  a  new  note  has  appeared  in  hterature. 

50 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 


III 


What  is  to  be  said  now  of  Petrarch's  attitude  towards 
Dante  and  his  relations  to  his  friends  ?  In  1359  Boc- 
caccio, who  felt  that  Petrarch  did  not  approve  of  Dante, 
sent  him  a  copy  of  the  Divine  Comedy,  with  a  Latin 
poem  in  which  he  begged  him  to  read  the  work  of  his 
great  fellow-citizen.  It  seems  strange  that  Petrarch 
should  have  waited  all  these  years,  until  he  was  fifty- 
five  years  old,  to  read  the  greatest  poem  that  Italy  had 
produced.  Had  he  himself  written  only  Latin,  been 
interested  only  in  that  language,  like  the  later  human- 
ists, such  indifference  might  have  been  credible.  Quite 
naturally,  the  cause  of  his  neglect  is  said  to  have  been 
jealousy.  He  himself,  when  speaking  of  the  vanity  of 
fame,  refers  to  the  distress  of  the  older  famous  man, 
when  he  sees  himself  crowded  out  by  younger  men  who 
are  becoming  noted.  Would  he  not  necessarily  have 
been  vexed  by  the  tremendous  enduring  fame  of  Dante  ? 
The  fact  that  such  a  sincere,  good  soul  as  Boccaccio  was 
troubled  by  his  friend's  attitude  is  perhaps  the  most 
important  testimony  against  Petrarch.  But  it  should 
not  be  accepted  without  close  scrutiny.  At  any  rate, 
some  account  should  be  made  of  the  letter  which 
Petrarch  wrote  in  reply  to  Boccaccio's  poem.  He  says: 
"  My  enemies  assert  that  I  hate  and  despise  Dante,  and 
in  this  way  stir  up  the  common  herd  against  me,  for 
with  them  he  is  very  popular.  How  could  I  bear  any 
ill-will  towards  a  man  whom  I  never  saw  but  once,  and 

51 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

that  in  my  earliest  childhood  ?  My  father,  forced  by 
other  cares  and  regard  for  his  family,  succumbed  to  the 
natural  influences  of  exile,  while  his  friend  resisted, 
applied  himself  with  even  greater  ardor,  and  neglected 
everything  else,  desirous  alone  of  future  fame.  In  this 
I  can  scarce  admire  and  praise  him  enough,  for  many 
are  easily  diverted  from  their  course  by  the  least  dis- 
turbance, especially  writers  of  verse,  who  need  silence 
and  quiet.  You  see,  therefore,  that  my  supposed  hate 
for  this  poet  is  a  trumped-up  and  ridiculous  invention. 
The  second  reproach  cast  upon  me  is  that,  exceedingly 
anxious  to  obtain  other  books,  which  I  had  little  hope 
of  finding,  I  showed  a  strange  indifference,  quite  foreign 
to  me,  towards  this  one,  although  it  was  readily  pro- 
curable. The  fact  I  admit,  but  I  deny  the  motives.'* 
His  reason  is  that  when  he  was  a  young  man,  and  espe- 
cially wished  to  distinguish  himself  in  the  vernacular, 
he  was  afraid,  because  of  the  impressionableness  of 
youth  and  its  tendency  to  admire  everything,  that  he 
might  become  an  imitator.  "  If  you  have  ever  beHeved 
me,  beheve  me  now.  Accept  this  as  the  real  explana- 
tion of  my  conduct.  Without  hesitation  I  yield  him 
the  palm  for  skill  in  the  use  of  the  vulgar  tongue.  They 
lie,  then,  who  assert  that  I  carp  at  his  renown,  I  who 
probably  understand  better  than  the  majority  of  those 
foolish  and  immoderate  admirers  of  his  what  it  is  that 
merely  tickles  their  ears  without  their  knowing  why, 
but  cannot  penetrate  their  thick  heads.  What  likeli- 
hood that  I  should  be  jealous  of  a  writer  who  devoted 

52 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

his  whole  Kfe  to  those  thmgs  which  in  my  eyes  were  but 
the  flower  and  first  fruits  of  my  youth  ?  It  is  true  that 
I  have  sometimes  said,  to  those  who  wished  to  know 
precisely  what  I  thought,  that  his  style  was  unequal, 
for  he  rises  to  a  higher  plane  of  excellence  in  the  verna- 
cular than  in  Latin  poetry  or  prose.  But  you  will  not 
deny  this;  nor  will  it,  if  rightly  understood,  carry  with 
it  any  disparagement  of  his  fame  and  glory/ ^ 

In  this  letter,  which  for  many  reasons  is  important, 
Petrarch  gives  as  his  reason  that  he  wished  to  avoid 
unconscious  (and  not  merely  conscious)  imitation. 
That  was  his  reason  for  not  reading  Dante  before;  and 
it  is  remarkable,  because  what  we  call  plagiarism  was 
then  common  enough,  and  went  unrebuked.  But 
suppose  a  close  examination  of  his  vernacular  poetry 
should  show  that  he  had  been  a  close  student  of  Dante, 
assimilating  forms  and  ideas  and  what  not,  and  turning 
them  to  account  ?  Would  that  not  convict  him  of  out- 
rageous bad  faith  ?  Many  an  article  has  been  written 
on  both  sides  of  this  question,  and  I  do  not  know  that 
there  is  as  yet  any  real  agreement.  Carducci,  one  of 
the  most  gifted  Italian  scholars  and  poets  of  our  day, 
thought  that  only  after  receiving  Boccaccio's  gift  of  the 
Divine  Comedy  did  Petrarch  imitate  Dante,  and  then 
especially  in  the  Trionfi.  Carducci  has  been  followed 
by  Hortis,  Bartoli,  Nolhac;  and  one  scholar,  Melodia, 
denies  any  influence  whatever,  either  in  the  Canzoniere 
or  in  the  Trionfi.  On  the  other  side  Cesareo,  Moschetti, 
and  Lamma  find  imitation  and  reminiscences.     It  is 

53 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

interesting  that  in  the  same  year  in  which  Melodia  was 
tr3dng  to  vindicate  Petrarch,  Scarano  pubHshed,  in 
the  twenty-ninth  volume  of  the  Giornale  Storico  delta 
Letteratura  italiana,  the  severest  criticism  made  up  to 
that  time,  under  the  title,  Ulnvidia  del  Petrarca.  In 
his  opinion,  he  has  no  difficulty  in  proving  that  before 
1359  Petrarch  had  read  the  Commedia  and  made  good 
use  of  it,  and  that  then  hypocritically  he  disowned  his 
model.  On  the  whole,  Scarano's  work  is  more  carefully 
done  than  Melodia's.  But  undoubtedly  it  displays  too 
much  animus;  for  after  he  has  stripped  Petrarch  of  his 
alleged  borrowings  from  Dante,  and  also  of  those  from 
Provence,  he  leaves  practically  nothing;  he  pictures  our 
author  as  a  sort  of  jackdaw  strutting  around  in  plumes 
borrowed  from  the  Provencal  songs  and  from  the  poets 
of  the  dolce  stil  nuovo,  sl  forlorn,  belated  creature. 

Taking  everything  into  consideration,  I  am  inclined 
to  accept  Petrarch^s  word,  even  though  it  is  hard  to 
understand  how  he  could  have  avoided  reading,  or  at 
least  looking  at  a  copy  of  Dante's  poetry.  As  to  the 
reminiscences  which  Scarano  finds,  not  all  are  of  equal 
weight;  one  must  remember  that  many  of  the  ideas 
were  in  the  air,  and  that  even  if  Petrarch  had  never 
perused  a  hne  of  Alighieri,  he  could  hardly  have  shut 
his  ears  when  the  latter's  verses  were  repeated  aloud,  a 
thing  which  often  occurred,  as  he  himself  admits.  For 
instance,  speaking  of  Dante's  silly  admirers  who  so 
mispronounced. and  lacerated  his  verses  that  they  did 
him  the  greatest  injury  a  poet  can  suffer,  he  says:  "  I 

54 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

can  only  give  voice  to  my  irritation  when  I  hear  the 
common  herd  befouling  with  their  stupid  mouths  the 
noble  beauty  of  his  lines."  Since  these  words  were 
written  in  a  letter  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  the 
Divine  Comedy ^  they  prove  that  he  was  not  unfamiUar 
with  a  certain  amount  of  Dante  —  which  would  go  far 
to  explain  the  Dantesque  reminiscences  and  might 
acquit  him  of  the  accusation  of  having  deliberately  lied. 
But,  after  all,  was  he  not  really  envious  and  jealous, 
in  spite  of  his  protestations  ?  It  is  curious  how  seldom 
he  mentions  Dante  by  name  in  the  rest  of  his  works. 
In  the  Res  MemorandcB,  to  be  sure,  he  does  tell  two 
stories  about  Dante's  stay  at  the  court  of  Can  Grande, 
as  examples  of  the  great  poet's  sharp  retort.  *'  Dante 
Alighieri,  one  of  my  fellow-citizens,  most  illustrious 
because  of  his  vernacular  works,  but  in  manners  a  little 
too  brusque  and  in  speech  too  uncompromising  to 
please  the  sensitive  eyes  and  ears  of  the  princes  of  our 
age,  was  received  during  his  exile  by  Can  Grande,  the 
generous  host  and  consoler  of  the  afflicted  at  that  time. 
At  first  he  was  held  in  honor,  but,  as  time  went,  he  lost 
favor.  One  day,  at  a  meal,  among  the  bu£foons  and 
mimes  present  there  was  one  who  because  of  his  free 
language  and  gestures  called  forth  great  applause. 
Can  Grande,  suspecting  that  Dante  was  ill-pleased, 
after  calling  the  buffoon  before  him  and  bestowing 
great  praise  upon  him,  turned  towards  Dante  and  said : 
'  I  wonder  how  it  is,  a  crazy  fellow  like  this  can  delight 
us  all,  when  you,  a  learned  man,  fail  to  do  so.'    Dante 

55 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

replied:  *  You  would  not  marvel  in  the  least,  if  you  but 
knew  that  similarity  in  manners  and  character  breeds 
friendship.'  "  "On  another  occasion  when  he  was  at 
a  banquet,  the  host,  hilarious  because  of  the  wine  he 
had  drunk,  and  stuffed  with  food,  was  sweating  pro- 
fusely and  talking  a  great  deal  of  nonsense.  Dante 
hstened  indignant,  without  saying  a  word.  All  were 
astonished  at  his  silence.  Then  the  speaker,  whose 
eloquence  the  others  applauded,  seized  Dante  with  his 
moist  hands  and  said:  '  Don't  you  agree  that  he  who 
speaks  truly  works  hard  ?  '  And  Dante  answered: 
'  I  was  wondering  why  you  perspired  so.'  "  In  his 
letter  to  Boccaccio,  Petrarch  says  further:  '^  I  venture 
to  add  that,  if  Dante  had  been  permitted  to  live  until 
this  time,  he  would  have  found  few  friends  more 
devoted  to  him  than  myself,  provided,  of  course,  that 
I  had  found  his  character  as  attractive  as  his  genius." 
To  this  restriction  we  should  not  give  too  much  weight. 
It  is  quite  conceivable  that  one  might  have  admired 
Dante's  works  and  character,  and  yet  have  found  him 
very  hard  to  get  along  with.  And  as  to  Dante's  be- 
havior (assuming  that  the  anecdotes  are  true)  at  Can 
Grande's  court,  while  Petrarch  could  hardly  have 
behaved  thus,  being  more  supple,  more  of  a  courtier, 
I  am  rather  incHned  to  beheve  that  he  sympathized 
with  Dante,  enjoyed  the  sharp  rebuke  to  Can  Grande 
and  the  snub  to  the  damp  and  garrulous  bore. 

Finally,  as  regards  the  matter  of  jealousy,  I  beheve 
that  he  was  rather  jealous.    But  is  there  anything,  after 

S6 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

all,  very  strange  in  this  ?  Was  it  not  quite  human  ? 
In  what  he  says,  from  his  point  of  view,  there  is  not  a 
little  truth,  and  his  position  was  a  difficult  one.  Dante's 
Latinity  was  not  of  the  best,  and  Petrarch  saw  that. 
His  rival  had  won  distinction  in  the  vernacular,  which 
in  Petrarch's  eyes  seemed  less  important  than  Latin. 
This  fact  would  of  itself  almost  acquit  Petrarch  of  the 
charge  of  jealousy;  nevertheless,  Petrarch  had  written 
also  in  Italian,  had  tried  to  write  well,  and  his  state  of 
mind  was  therefore  not  over-easy  to  define.  In  Latin, 
Petrarch  was  more  at  home  than  Dante.  He  could  not 
help  being  aware  of  this,  and  could  not  help  drawing 
the  inference  (though  he  did  not  proclaim  it  loudly) 
that  he  was  Dante's  superior.  If  anyone  is  disposed  to 
blame  him  for  this  private  opinion,  he  should  remember 
that  Dante  himself  was  not  a  modest  man.  With  such 
well-grounded  reservations  in  his  mind,  it  was  hard  for 
Petrarch  to  speak  of  his  fellow-poet  without  seeming 
lukewarm  to  the  great  crowd  of  Dante's  admirers,  who 
would  have  been  satisfied  by  nothing  short  of  a  shrill 
tribute  of  praise  exaggerated  even  beyond  the  powers 
of  the  urbane  Petrarch. 

Petrarch  has  also  been  accused  of  jealousy  of  his  own 
great  contemporary,  Boccaccio;  but  never  was  accu- 
sation more  unjust  than  that.  The  only  proper  answer 
is  that  his  critical  sense  was  not  sufficiently  developed 
for  him  to  appreciate  Boccaccio's  works  at  their  true 
value.  He  has  been  accused  also  of  insincerity  in  other 
friendships,   and  his  large  correspondence  has  been 

57 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

brought  forward  as  damning  evidence.  It  is  said  that 
he  purposely  sought  the  society  of  men  of  meaner 
intellect  than  his  own,  those  from  whom  he  could  get 
nothing  but  adulation,  to  whom  he  could  preach  down 
without  having  his  authority  questioned.  These 
accusations  again  seem  to  me  ridiculous.  While  the 
tone  of  his  correspondence  is  not  all  that  one  could 
desire,  other  reasons  than  insincerity  account  for  our 
dissatisfaction;  and  so  far  as  the  category  of  Petrarch's 
friends  is  concerned,  no  man  was  more  liberal,  more 
catholic  in  his  tastes.  Naturally  he  preferred  those  who 
could  share  his  interests;  but  as  for  intellectual  capac- 
ity, it  is  idle  to  say  that  he  neglected  or  shunned  his 
peers  or  his  superiors.  There  was  in  his  day  only  one 
man  of  letters  with  whom  he  could  be  compared; 
namely,  Boccaccio;  and  Boccaccio  was  his  dearest 
friend. 

IV 

The  charge  of  selfishness  has  also  been  brought 
against  Petrarch  in  regard  to  his  love  for  Laura.  It  has 
been  said  that  if  he  sang  of  her  so  long  and  so  often,  it 
was  in  order  that  she  might  aid  him  to  win  fame.  It 
was  then  the  fashion  for  young  poets  to  be  enamored  of 
some  woman  and  celebrate  her,  the  glory  which  the 
songster  bestowed  upon  the  lady  being  reflected  upon 
him.  To  this  particular  affair  an  added  shade  of 
romantic  interest  is  given  by  the  fact  that  it  offers  us 
the  spectacle  of  a  churchman  in  love. 

s8 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

Of  this  great  love  story  we  know  the  hero,  but  who 
was  the  heroine  ?  Are  we  sure  that  Laura  ever  Hved  ? 
Petrarch's  own  friend,  Giacomo  Colonna,  writing  to 
him  in  1336,  expressed  doubt  concerning  the  reality  of 
such  a  person;  but  Petrarch  in  answer  assured  him 
that  he  would  not  be  so  incredulous,  were  he  to  see  the 
author's  pitiful  physical  condition.  One  wonders  how 
far  this  argument  persuaded  Giacomo;  for  Petrarch, 
in  spite  of  all  the  mental  anguish  he  undoubtedly 
suffered  in  his  lifetime,  like  many  nervous  invalids  was 
(in  appearance,  at  least)  robust.  But  Giacomo 
Colonna  was  not  the  only  one  to  express  misgivings. 
Even  Boccaccio  beUeved  that  Laura  should  be  taken 
allegorically.  On  the  other  hand,  testimony  to  the 
actual  existence  of  such  a  lady  was  offered  in  the  four- 
teenth century  by  a  Florentine,  Luigi  Peruzzi,  who 
identified  her  with  a  certain  Lauretta  of  the  house  of 
Salso.  In  the  eighteenth  century,  the  French  Abb6  de 
Sade  tried  to  prove  that  she  was  really  Laura  de  Noves, 
wife  of  Hugues  de  Sade,  and  mother  of  eleven  children; 
that  she  died  in  April,  1348,  and  was  buried  in  the 
church  of  the  Minorite  friars,  which,  according  to 
Petrarch,  was  the  burial-place  of  Laura.  On  the  whole, 
the  idea  that  there  was  a  real  Laura  is  generally 
accepted;  but  as  to  who  she  was  and  what  part  she 
played  in  the  Canzoniere,  opinions  differ  widely. 
Grober,  in  his  Von  Petrarcd's  Laura  {Miscellanea  di 
sttcdi  critici  in  onore  di  Arturo  Graf),  shows  that  Laura 
was  a  very  common  name  in  France  at  that  time,  and 

59 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

asserts  that  Petrarch's  Laura  was  not  Laura  de  Sade, 
but  an  ideaHzed  t)^e  of  womanhood  —  a  muse  who 
inspired  him,  rather  than  a  lady  he  loved.  Franz  X. 
Kraus,  in  his  essays,  also  adopts  the  theory  of  an  ideal 
woman.  Canello  sees  in  the  name  a  pseudonym,  like 
those  used  by  the  Provencal  poets.  Bartoli  (vol.  VII 
of  his  Storia  delta  Letteratura  italiana)  accepts  the 
pseudonym  hypothesis  because  (he  says)  no  poet  in 
those  days  ever  spoke  of  his  lady  by  her  right  name; 
and  he  mentions  Fiammetta  and  Selvaggia  as  examples 
to  prove  his  point.  Hauvette  believes  that  Petrarch 
saw  and  fell  in  love  with  a  woman,  but  that  she  was  not 
Laura  de  Noves.  Enrico  Croce  in  his  La  vera  Laura 
e  Francesco  Petrarca  is  incHned  to  conjecture  that  she 
was  a  maiden  (not  married  and  a  mother)  belonging 
perhaps  to  the  Colonna  family,  though  born  in  Pro- 
vence. Again  (Minich,  Sulla  persona  della  celebre 
Laura,  1878),  Laura  is  made  out  to  be  the  daughter  of 
Henri  de  Chabaud,  or  the  daughter  of  Paul  de  Sade,  in 
either  case  a  maiden.  The  Prince  de  Valori  (Nouvelle 
Revue,  Nov.  15,  Dec.  i,  1896)  thinks  she  was  a  maiden, 
and  of  the  family  of  Saint-Laurent.  The  Swedish 
scholar,  Wulff,  beHeves  that  there  were  two  Lauras, 
one  a  lady  of  noble  stock,  the  other  of  humble  birth, 
one  woman  of  that  name  being  the  mother  of  Petrarch's 
son  Giovanni. 

The  latest  views  are  contained  in  an  article  pubHshed 
in  Supplement  12  of  the  Giornale  Storico  della  Letteratura 
italiana  (1910),  entitled  Tra  Valchiusa  ed  Avignone  — 

60 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

La  Scena  degli  Amori  del  Petrarca,  by  Flamini,  who  has 
no  doubt  as  to  the  existence  of  a  real  Laura,  a  real 
passion  on  Petrarch's  part,  and  also,  of  course,  a  real 
setting.  First  of  all,  we  need  not  be  troubled  by 
Petrarch's  apparently  contradictory  statements  about 
his  first  meeting  with  Laura:  one  date,  Friday,  April 
lo,  1327,  is  given  in  Era  il  giorno  ch^al  sol  si  scoloraro; 
another,  Monday,  April  6,  occurs  in  three  places  — 
in  the  Trionfi  {Uora  prima  era '/  dl  sesto  d'Aprile),  at 
the  close  of  the  sonnet  beginning  Voglia  mi  sprona,  and 
in  the  entry  in  the  Ambrosian  Virgil.  We  need  not 
assiune,  with  WuUff,  the  existence  of  two  Lauras;  it  is 
quite  possible  that  he  should  have  seen  the  lady  in 
church  on  Monday  of  Holy  Week  in  Avignon,  and, 
attracted  by  her  beauty,  have  sought  her  (under  the 
pretext  of  hunting,  of  which  he  was  always  fond),  in 
the  country,  where  he  was  fortunate  enough  to  meet 
her  again  on  Good  Friday.  If  this  second  meeting  took 
place  outside  Avignon,  her  real  home  can  hardly  have 
been  in  that  city;  and  that  real  home,  her  birthplace, 
and  the  various  places  where  Petrarch  saw  her,  form, 
with  her  identity,  the  subjects  of  Flamini's  study. 
Petrarch  says  Laura  was  born  in  a  "picciol  borgo." 
There  are  a  number  of  small  towns,  not  far  from 
Avignon,  any  one  of  which  might  have  been  the  place 
—  Graveson,  Cabrieres,  Thor,  and  Lagnes.  None  of 
these  Flamini  is  willing  to  accept,  nor  Bondelon,  very 
close  to  Vaucluse;  nor  does  he  agree  with  Wulff,  who 
thought  she  might  have  visited  from  time  "to  time  the 

61 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

heights  of  Galas,  where  she  was  born.  Flamini  requires 
a  place  which  shall  be  far  enough  from  Vaucluse  to 
make  the  latter  spot  seem  a  refuge  to  Petrarch,  and  yet 
which  can  be  seen  from  the  hill  above  Vaucluse,  and, 
seen  from  there,  can  appear  to  be  situated  in  the  plain, 
though  really  on  a  low  hill.  That  spot,  in  agreement 
with  a  late  fifteenth  century  Neapolitan  poet,  Francesco 
Galeoto,  who  visited  France  in  1483,  he  identifies  with 
Caumont,  or  rather  with  a  small  hill  called  Picabre. 
The  scenes  of  Petrarch's  love-making  are  the  regions 
near  by.  The  "amorosa  reggia,''  background  of  the 
canzone  Chiare  fresche  dolci  acque,  is  forty  minutes' 
walk  from  the  collicello,  near  a  place  called  Gadagne; 
the  "dolci  colli"  are  those  which  extend  from  Caumont 
to  Vedenes.  Petrarch  had,  then,  plenty  of  opportunities 
to  see  Laura,  not  merely  in  the  balcony  of  her  own  home, 
sitting  and  singing,  but  also  in  the  '^  amorosa  reggia,'' 
bathing  her  face  or  some  object,  plucking  flowers  and 
weaving  garlands  for  her  hair  —  this  last  occupation 
being  one  of  the  pretty  customs  of  the  day,  and  no 
figment  of  the  poet's  imagination.  Flamini's  Laura, 
therefore,  is  not  Laura  de  Noves,  inasmuch  as  she  came 
not  from  Noves  but  from  Caumont.  Neither  can  she 
have  been  so  old  as  the  lady  of  Noves,  nor  have  had  so 
many  children:  "  crebris  partibus  "  does  not  mean  that. 
She  was  probably  about  nine  years  younger  than 
Petrarch,  and  still  capable  of  inspiring  passion  at  her 
death.  The  fact  that  a  Laura  de  Noves  died  of  the 
plague  in  April,  1348,  and  was  buried  in  the  church  of 

62 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

the  Minorite  Friars,  is  not  conclusive  proof,  either. 
Other  Lauras  might  have  died  at  the  same  time  and 
been  buried  in  the  same  place.  We  must  look  for  some 
important  family  in  the  district  mentioned,  and  there 
Flamini  finds  the  Sabrans,  some  of  whose  members 
were  so  brutal  that  we  can  understand  Petrarch^s 
speaking  of  Laura  as  a  "  Candida  rosa  nata  in  dure 
spine,"  and  his  telling  her  to  turn  her  glances  away 
from  the  place  where  she  was  bom.  Her  husband  was 
a  noble,  and  probably  Italianized.  That  is  why  Pe- 
trarch, who  knew  Proven^l  perfectly,  wrote  verse  in 
Italian  to  win  the  favor  of  the  woman  he  loved. 

Another  problem  intimately  bound  up  with  that  of 
the  identity  of  Laura  has  perplexed  students  of  the 
Canzoniere.  It  is  this:  assuming  there  was  such  a 
person  as  Laura,  is  she  the  only  woman  mentioned  in 
the  collection  of  poems  ?  Is  she  the  only  woman  to 
whom  the  poems  were  addressed  ?  Mestica,  Volpi,  and 
Cesareo  believe  that  she  was  not.  Cesareo  (in  his 
article  in  the  Nuova  Antologia  of  June  15,  1895)  guesses 
that  Petrarch,  forming  a  collection  of  his  poems  in  his 
old  age,  included  with  those  celebrating  Laura  others, 
treating  of  other  women,  which  he  altered  sufficiently 
to  make  them  accord  with  his  purpose.  The  principal 
opponent  of  this  theory  is  Enrico  Sicardi  {Gli  Amori 
estravaganti  e  molteplici  di  Francesco  Petrarca,  1900), 
who  maintains  that  in  none  of  Petrarch^s  poems  are 
found  traces  of  any  love  for  any  woman  except  Laura, 
and  that  the  poet  was  singularly  chaste.    It  is  hard  to 

63 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

see  how  a  critic  can  be  so  blind:  leaving  aside  the  poet's 
two  illegitimate  children,  there  are  references  enough 
in  Petrarch's  works  to  show  that  he  was  a  man  sorely 
tempted  by  sensual  passions,  and  we  have  reason  to 
suppose  that  he  frequently  succumbed.  See,  for  in- 
stance, the  Secretum,  ii,  87.  Whether  or  not,  in  ar- 
ranging the  Canzoniere  for  publication,  Petrarch  (as 
Cesareo  supposes)  meant  to  compose  a  sort  of  psycho- 
logical romance,  —  the  theme  of  which  should  be  the 
attainment  of  liberty  by  the  soul,  the  subject  of  the 
first  part  being  the  tumult  of  passions,  of  the  second  a 
gradual  return  to  thoughts  of  virtue  and  religion  when 
confronted  by  the  spectacle  of  death,  of  the  third  the 
attainment  of  the  Hght  of  God,  —  it  is  almost  certain 
that,  as  we  have  them,  the  poems  which  make  up  the 
Canzoniere  are  a  very  treacherous  foundation  upon 
which  to  base  theories  about  the  personahty  of  Laura 
or  Petrarch's  relations  to  her.  The  matter  is  further 
complicated  by  data  such  as  the  following,  which  con- 
flict with  one  another:  Petrarch's  famous  note  on 
Laura's  death  in  the  Ambrosian  manuscript  of  Virgil 
which  belonged  to  him  (the  date  of  which,  however,  is 
uncertain)  speaks  of  the  event  with  profound  feeling, 
and  the. poet  writes  the  beautiful  sonnet,  Oime  il  hel 
viso;  yet  in  his  letters  he  says  that  his  love  for  her  was 
a  little  spark  which  had  been  languishing  for  some  time 
and  was  extinguished  by  her  death;  again,  he  declares 
that,  even  if  her  eyes  were  open,  they  would  not  exercise 
their  usual  influence  upon  him. 

64 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

I  am  personally  inclined  to  think  that  Petrarch 
probably  did  see  some  beautiful  woman;  that,  in- 
fluenced by  Provencal  ideas  (and  by  Italian,  too),  he 
resolved  to  celebrate  her;  that,  being  a  man  of  strong 
passions,  he  conceived  for  her  an  admiration  —  even 
though  he  may  never  have  been  actually  in  her  com- 
pany —  not  entirely  pla tonic.  In  his  thoughts  he  may 
have  liked  to  represent  her  as  near  him,  and  she  may 
have  become  very  real  to  him.  We  do  know  that 
Petrarch  was  fond,  when  lying  awake,  of  imagining  his 
friends  to  be  present,  and  of  holding  conversations  with 
them.  I  have  an  idea  that  he  carried  it  rather  far,  that 
he  lived  pretty  freely  in  two  worlds,  one  of  fact,  the 
other  of  fancy;  that  a  passage  from  one  to  the  other  was 
easy,  and  that,  furthermore,  he  could  hardly  tell  after- 
wards in  which  he  had  lived  at  a  given  time.  Certain 
ideas  became  almost  concrete,  and  produced  a  greater 
effect  upon  him  than  any  external  and  material  object. 
It  is  possible,  by  change  of  occupations  and  change  of 
scenes,  to  avoid  seeing  and  hearing  things  which  trouble 
us.  But  the  fixed  idea  is  ever  with  us,  and  this  seems  to 
me  to  have  been  the  case  with  Petrarch.  Any  real  love 
that  he  may  have  felt  for  the  real  woman  may  have 
vanished,  but  in  its  place  was  substituted  a  passion  for 
an  ideal  creature,  which  caused  infinitely  greater  dis- 
tress. Expressions  of  this  suffering  we  find  in  the 
Secretum,  and  in  a  Latin  poem.  In  one  place  in  the 
former  work,  St.  Augustine,  who  has  been  pitilessly 
probing  the  poet's  heart,  telling  him  that  he  ought  to 

6s 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

avoid  the  scenes  of  his  love,  exclaims:  ^' How  many 
times  in  Avignon,  —  which  has  been,  I  will  not  say  the 
cause,  but  the  laboratory  of  your  love,  when  you 
thought  you  were  cured,  as  you  would  have  been  to  a 
considerable  extent,  had  you  only  fled,  —  how  many 
times,  I  say,  wandering  about  those  parts  of  the  city 
you  know  so  well,  at  the  mere  sight  of  the  places,  with- 
out seeing  any  one,  recalling  your  vanities  of  old,  and 
overcome  by  the  recollection,  you  have  stopped,  sighing 
heavily!  Then  with  great  difficulty  restraining  your 
tears,  and  feeling  half  wounded,  you  have  said  to  your- 
self, ^  I  feel  that  my  old  enemy.  Love,  is  hiding  here.'  " 
Where  should  Petrarch  go  to  escape  love  ?  In  his 
poems  he  says,  to  Vaucluse;  but  black  care  follows  him 
there.  He  has  fled  from  the  scenes  which  reminded 
him  of  his  passion,  but  it  is  impossible  to  get  rid  of 
himself.  He  is  still  tortured  by  his  love.  The  descrip- 
tion which  he  gives  in  his  poetical  epistle  to  LeUo  {Ep. 
I,  8)  may  well  be  rhetorical;  but  I  do  not  think  the 
same  can  be  said  of  a  remarkable  poetical  epistle  to 
Giacomo  Colonna  {Ep.,  i,  7).  He  begins  it  with  the 
words :  "  You  wish  to  hear  what  I  am  doing,  my  manner 
of  life,  the  state  of  my  affairs.  I  will  not  conceal  the 
truth  from  you,  nor  tell  you  what  is  false.  It  will  be  as 
though  I  were  speaking  to  myself.  Since  you  feel  a 
fatherly  interest  in  me,  I  will  speak,  and  perhaps  you 
will  be  able  to  help  me  with  advice.  There  is  a  certain 
lady,  illustrious  because  of  her  virtue  and  her  family, 
celebrated  and  made  famous  in  my  songs.    I  had  hoped 

66 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

to  forget  her,  but  she  returns  and  fills  me  with  terror. 
Ten  years  my  weary  neck  had  borne  her  chains,  and 
love  had  pierced  the  marrow  of  my  bones.  Then  I  was 
seized  with  a  desire  for  liberty  and  tried  to  shake  off  my 
yoke.  But  it  is  difficult  to  banish  one  who  has  been  in 
your  heart  ten  years,  and  with  shattered  strength  to 
fight  against  a  powerful  enemy.  I  sought  safety  in 
flight,  wandered  about  the  earth,  ventured  upon  the 
stormy  Tuscan  and  Adriatic  seas,  sought  refuge  in  the 
Pyrenees.  Then,  guided  by  fate,  I  returned  to  the  city. 
Hardly  had  I  touched  the  threshold  when  my  malady 
returned.  Then  I  sought  an  asylum  in  those  hills, 
which  I  hoped  would  conceal  me.  But  there,  too,  she 
has  followed  me,  and  clings  to  her  rights.  Now  she 
appears  before  my  waking  eyes;  now  her  threatening 
countenance  with  vain  terrors  makes  mock  of  my 
uncertain  slumbers.  Often,  strange  to  say,  though  the 
door  be  treble-barred,  she  enters  my  room  in  the  deep 
night,  firmly  demanding  her  slave.  I  am  transfixed  with 
cold,  the  blood  deserts  my  Hmbs  to  seek  refuge  in  my 
heart.  1  awake,  the  tears  stream  from  my  eyes.  I 
leave  my  bed  and  the  house  of  fear,  and  seek  the  hills 
and  woods,  and  unconsciously  I  look  about  me  to  see 
whether  she  who  has  disturbed  my  slumbers  may  not 
stop  me  in  my  path.  Who  will  believe  me  ?  Often  in 
the  trackless  mazes  of  the  forest,  when  I  am  most  con- 
fident that  I  am  alone,  I  see  her  terrifying  face  in  the 
bushes,  on  the  trunks  of  the  solitary  oaks,  and  rising 
from  the  liquid  streams;  it  flashes  in  the  clouds  or  in 

67 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

the  clear  sky,  or  issues  living  from  the  heart  of  rock. 
My  feet  are  rooted  to  the  ground  with  fear." 

Now,  it  seems  to  me  hard  to  overestimate  the  im- 
portance of  this  poetical  epistle  (which  has  its  pendant 
in  the  Italian  poem,  Di  pensier  in  pensier,  di  monte  in 
monte)  as  a  document  throwing  light  upon  Petrarch's 
character,  and  especially  upon  his  relations  to  Laura. 
Writers  of  love  poetry  before  him,  from  antiquity  down 
to  Rustico  di  Filippo,  from  the  latter  down  to  the  school 
of  the  dolce  stil  nuovo,  have  shed  tears  in  plenty,  have 
lamented  bitterly  the  cruelty  of  their  lady,  whom  they 
have  represented  as  an  enemy;  but  there  is  something 
more  than  this  in  Petrarch's  poem.  Although  it  is 
fairly  long  and  frequently  rhetorical  enough,  although 
Petrarch  in  writing  it  is  treating  the  matter  objectively, 
I  am  almost  certain  that  he  actually  suffered  as  he 
describes,  and  that,  if  he  did  so,  he  was  the  victim  of  a 
nervous  malady  the  true  nature  of  which  may  have 
been  unknown  to  him.  Those  nocturnal  terrors,  and  the 
form  they  take,  are  well  enough  known  nowadays  to  be 
almost  commonplaces.  Petrarch,  because  of  his  highly 
strung  temperament  and  the  clash  between  his  religious 
and  his  worldly  aspirations,  and  because  of  overwork, 
was  just  the  person  to  suffer  from  nervous  troubles  of 
this  character. 

One  phase  of  the  ailment  he  recognized  and  under- 
stood. St.  Augustine  says  to  him  in  the  Secretum: 
"  You  are  suffering  from  a  terrible  scourge  of  the  soul, 
melancholy,    which    modem    men    call    accidie,    the 

68 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

ancients  cegritudoJ^  Petrarch:  "The  mere  mention 
of  this  malady  causes  me  to  shudder.''  "  Doubtless 
because  you  have  suffered  from  it  a  long  time/'  "  Yes, 
and  while  in  all  the  other  troubles  which  torment  me 
there  is  a  certain  sweetness  (though  it  be  false  by 
nature),  in  this  sadness  all  is  bitter  and  lugubrious. 
The  road  is  always  open  to  despair,  and  everything 
urges  on  the  unhappy  souls  to  suicide.  Add  that  while 
the  other  passions  make  frequent  assaults  upon  me, 
their  duration  is  short;  this  scourge,  however,  takes 
absolute  possession  of  me  and  tortures  me  for  entire 
days  and  nights.  During  this  time  I  take  no  pleasure 
in  the  light.  I  do  not  live.  I  am,  as  it  were,  plunged  in 
the  night  of  Tartarus,  and  I  suffer  the  cruelest  of  deaths. 
The  worst  of  my  misery  is  that  I  actually  feed  upon 
my  suffering  and  my  tears  with  a  bitter  pleasure,  from 
which  I  have  no  will  to  be  torn  away." 

Petrarch  calls  his  trouble  accidie.  The  definition 
given  in  Webster  is  "  sloth,  torpor,"  and  that  was 
Aristotle's  idea;  Dante,  too,  means  sloth  when  he  uses 
the  word  in  the  Purgatorio.  In  the  Inferno  he  means 
something  more.  In  Canto  vii,  Virgil  utters  the  fol- 
lowing words:  "  I  would  have  thee  beheve  for  certain 
that  there  are  people  under  the  water  who  sob  and 
make  it  bubble  at  the  surface,  as  thy  eye  may  tell  thee, 
whichever  way  it  turn.  Fixed  in  the  shme,  they  say, 
*  Sullen  were  we  in  the  sweet  air  that  is  gladdened  by  the 
sun,  carrying  sluggish  smoke  within  our  hearts;  now 
lie  we  sullen  here  in  the  black  mire.'    This  hymn  they 

69 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

gurgle  in  their  throats,  for  they  cannot  speak  in  full 
words."  According  to  Boccaccio  in  his  Commentary, 
this  sullenness  is  a  result  of  unhappy  conditions.  The 
sufferer  feels  a  distaste  to  imdertake  anything,  or  to 
finish  it  if  undertaken.  He  lets  everything  slip  from 
his  grasp,  becomes  discontented,  a  recluse,  hates  him- 
self and  all  that  is  good.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  accidie 
was  regarded  as  one  of  the  especial  curses  of  monastic 
life.  The  monk,  when  not  celebrating  offices,  when 
alone  in  his  cell,  suffered  from  torpor  and  the  im- 
moderate bitterness  of  mind  by  which  spiritual  joyful- 
ness  is  destroyed.  Occasionally  he  was  driven  even  to 
suicide.  One  may  find  not  a  Httle  of  interest  said  about 
the  matter  in  the  chronicle  of  Fra  SaHmbeni,  who  was 
himself  such  a  robust,  healthy  character.  The  ailment 
has  been  associated  with  "the  noonday  devil";  and 
many  of  us  are  all  too  familiar  with  the  feehng  of  de- 
pression, indifference,  and  slothfulness,  which  comes 
upon  us  in  the  hateful  hours  from  noonday  till  three 
or  four  in  the  afternoon.  Voigt  affirms  that  Petrarch, 
not  understanding  what  the  word  accidie  meant,  ap- 
plied it  to  a  mental  trouble  which  he  found  described 
in  Seneca's  work  on  Peace  of  Mind,  a  disturbance  based 
upon  duahty  of  character;  but,  after  all,  accidie  is 
closely  aUied  to  such  a  malady,  if  not  a  form  of  the 
same  thing.  Surely  this  duahty  existed  in  Petrarch.  He 
had  a  deep  love  for  a  quiet,  retired  life,  which  was  in 
accordance  with  philosophical  and  religious  ideas;  and, 
at  the  same  time,  a  keen  desire  to  play  an  important 

70 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

r61e  in  the  active  life  about  him,  and  an  insatiable 
passion  for  fame.  The  world  about  him  was  a  contin- 
ual battlefield;  even  so  was  his  soul,  and  he  could 
never  escape  the  strife. 

It  is  not  unnatural  that  he  should  have  experienced 
some  difficulty  in  making  clear  to  St.  Augustine  the 
cause  of  his  trouble.  St.  Augustine  asks:  "  What  is  it 
that  drives  you  to  this  despair  —  the  course  of  temporal 
things,  physical  pain,  or  the  vicissitudes  of  fortune  ?  " 
And  Petrarch  replies:  "  Not  one  of  these  things  by 
itself.  If  I  had  been  attacked  in  single  combat,  I  should 
have  held  firm,  but  I  am  now  overwhelmed  by  an  entire 
army.  Each  time  that  I  am  struck  by  the  first  blow  of 
Fortune,  I  stand  firm  and  intrepid,  realize  that  I  have 
often  been  grievously  struck  before,  and  that  I  have 
come  out  a  victor.  At  the  second  blow  I  stagger  a 
little;  if  she  return  to  the  charge  a  third  or  fourth  time, 
I  take  refuge,  not  precipitately  but  deliberately,  in  the 
citadel  of  reason.  There,  if  Fortune  besiege  me  with  all 
her  army,  if  to  subjugate  me  she  assemble  all  the 
miseries  that  can  befall  man,  —  memory  of  my  past 
suffering,  fear  of  future  ills,  —  hemmed  in  on  all  sides, 
seized  with  terror  at  the  sight  of  accumulated  woes,  I 
lament  and  feel  welHng  up  within  me  this  cruel  sorrow. 
.  .  .  Imagine  some  one  surrounded  by  innumerable 
enemies,  without  hope  of  escape  or  of  obtaining  mercy, 
without  consolation,  to  whom  all  is  hostile  .  .  .  ."  St. 
Augustine  answers:  "Although  your  exposition  is 
confused,  I  see  that  your  troubles  rest  upon  your  poor 

71 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

opinion  of  yourself."  To  this  Petrarch  assents.  And 
again  St.  Augustine  says:  "You  resemble  those  who,  on 
the  slightest  offence,  recall  past  enmities."  Petrarch 
responds:  "  There  is  in  me  no  wound  old  enough  to  be 
healed  by  time." 

While  it  is  easy  to  understand  a  part  of  Petrarch's 
>j(^  troubles  as  due  to  his  sensitiveness,  it  sounds  strange 
to  hear  him  say  that  self-depreciation  had  anything  to 
do  with  them;  but  I  really  believe  it  did.  Not  a  little 
of  what  seems  excessive  vanity  in  a  man  is  due  to  a 
wondering,  exultant  pleasure  and  surprise  at  having 
accomplished  so  much.  One  of  the  sources  of  his. 
despondency  was  the  desire  for  fame,  which  calls 'for  a 
word  or  two  of  discussion.  Expressions  of  it  do  occur, 
to  be  sure,  in  Dante,  but  to  no  such  extent  as  we  find  it, 
in  the  works  of  Petrarch,  who  avers  that  this  passion, 
which  has  been  with  him  since  his  earliest  years,  is  so 
strong  in  him  that  no  remedy  can  counteract  it.  In  his 
Canzoniere  he  is  constantly  playing  upon  the  words 
Laura  and  Laurea.  That  is  one  reason  why  his  friends, 
Giacomo  Colonna  and  Boccaccio,  doubted  whether  the 
woman  Laura  had  ever  existed.  In  these  same  poems 
he  asserts  that  even  this  vernacular  verse  will  render 
him  famous.  In  his  Latin  writings  also  he  prophesies 
his  fame.  Especially  is  this  notable  in  the  Africa,  the 
work  which  he  hoped  and  beheved  would  contribute 
above  all  else  to  his  glory,  because  it  was  so  rare  and 
beautiful  and  excellent.  Just  as  Brunetto  Latini  proph- 
esies the  future  fame  of  Dante  in  the  Inferno,  so 

72 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

Scipio's  father  and  the  poet  Ennius  tell  of  the  young 
Tuscan  who  in  the  distant  future  shall  call  back  the 
muses  and  restore  the  sisters  to  Helicon.  We  must 
remember  what  importance  Petrarch  attached  to  his 
coronation,  and  to  its  taking  place  in  Rome,  for  there 
the  ceremony  would  be  a  more  universal  recognition  of 
his  greatness  than  if  it  had  occurred  in  Paris,  or  in  some 
other  city  in  Italy. 

Of  this  desire  for  fame  there  is  an  aspect  (indeed,  a 
double  aspect)  which  is  of  considerable  importance: 
with  all  his  excessive  vanity,  Petrarch,  when  insisting 
upon  fame,  was  really  a  great  champion  both  of  the 
rights  of  the  individual  man  and  of  the  value  of  man's 
activity  upon  earth.  And  this  in  spite  of  his  talking 
against  fame,  as  did  Oderisi  of  Gubbio,  and  in  spite  of 
his  apprehension  lest  it  interfere  with  his  salvation. 
The  rights  of  the  individual,  the  lawfulness  of  fame 
would  no  doubt  have  been  recognized  if  Petrarch  had 
never  lived;  but  he,  though  some  may  think  him  only 
dimly  aware  of  the  larger  aspect  of  the  real  issue,  was 
an  eager  and  a  potent  leader.  It  is  rather  amusing  to 
see  him  attempting  to  legitimize  glory  by  making  it 
mean  more  than  posthumous  fame  on  earth.  "  I 
believe,"  he  says  in  the  Secretum,  "  that  the  glory  for 
which  one  is  allowed  to  hope  on  earth  should  be  sought 
during  this  life  on  earth,  to  the  end  that  a  more  splen- 
did glory  may  be  enjoyed  in  Heaven,  having  attained 
which,  one  will  no  longer  wish  to  think  of  this  earth." 
The  shrewd  St.  Augustine  points  out  the  senselessness 

73 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

of  the  poet,  who,  trying  to  win  earthly  fame  in  Heaven, 
is  Hkely  to  fall  between  two  stools;  and  he  quotes  the 
Africa,  wherein  Petrarch  describes  the  successive  deaths 
of  man's  fame,  due  to  the  rivalry  of  new  aspirants  for 
glory,  to  the  decay  of  tombstones  and  of  books.  He 
advocates  the  acquisition  of  a  certain  kind  of  fame 
which  naturally  accompanies  virtue.  Let  Petrarch  be 
virtuous,  then,  and  win  the  real  fame;  let  him  abandon 
his  literary  works.  This  is  too  much  for  our  author, 
who  decides  that  he  will  first  complete  his  books,  and 
then  give  himself  up  entirely  to  virtue.  St.  Augustine 
takes  leave  of  him  with  the  hope  that  he  may  be  suc- 
cessful, and  Petrarch  shares  that  hope.  It  is  to  Augus- 
tine's credit,  —  and  of  course  to  Petrarch's  as  well,  — 
that  he  perceives  the  fallacy  of  this  effort  to  legitimize 
fame,  which  reminds  one  of  similar  efforts  on  the  part 
of  the  old  Romans,  when  they  asserted  that  the  art  of 
rhetoric  was  an  ars  bene  vivendi  as  well  as  an  ars  bene 
dicendi,  that  the  great  orator  must  of  necessity  be  a 
good  man.  In  both  cases,  of  course,  the  desire  was  for 
earthly  glory;  and  the  time  had  come  when  religion 
was  unable  to  stifle  any  longer  this  yearning.  Well  and 
good  it  is  for  fame  to  help  men  in  the  life  after  death,  if 
such  there  be;  but  the  real  thing  is  to  enjoy  fame  on 
this  earth  during  one's  Hfetime,  and  to  hand  it  down  to 
posterity. 

From  what  has  gone  before  it  is  quite  clear  that 
Petrarch  was  not  perfect.  His  ideals  were  noble,  but 
his  strength  was  inadequate  for  their  fulfillment.    His 

74 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

eye  was  always  turned  inwards,  he  was  always  dissecting 
himself  and  always  publishing  the  results.  Few  people, 
however,  can  indulge  to  such  an  extent  in  self-exposure 
and  retain  the  respect  of  their  listeners.  Not  merely 
because  it  appears  to  show  vanity  on  the  part  of  the 
exhibitors,  nor  because,  as  Dante  says,  intimacy 
cheapens  a  man,  but  because  almost  inevitably  such 
self-analysis  is  the  result  of  morbid  conditions.  It  is 
quite  unnecessary  to  assume  that  Petrarch  was  epilep- 
tic, as  did  Lombroso,  or  an  opium-eater,  as  has  been 
later  suggested,  or  that  he  had  suffered  from  diseases 
which  affected  his  brain;  but  to  a  certain  extent  he 
really  was  a  nervous  invahd.  Now,  if  a  man  is  the 
victim  of  an  unhealthy,  over-sensitive  imagination,  the 
best  thing  he  can  do  is  to  keep  his  thoughts  to  himself, 
or  else  to  use  great  tact  and  judgment  in  selecting  which 
ones  he  shall  make  known  to  the  world.  Some  men  can 
be  almost  equally  self-revealing  and  yet  stand  the  test 
successfully  —  Dante  and  Montaigne,  for  instance. 
Other  men,  who  suffer  equally,  are  more  reticent; 
Samuel  Johnson  and  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  are 
examples.  Petrarch  displayed  all  his  weaknesses;  but 
it  is  evident  that,  in  spite  of  defects  which  we  can  see  so 
clearly,  the  man  must  have  possessed  great  personal 
charm.  He  made  many  friends,  and  he  kept  them; 
and  it  meant  much  for  humanism  that  its  apostle  should 
be  able  to  play  so  brilliant  a  part  in  society.  A  man 
who  could  make  himself  personally  agreeable  to  persons 
like  Robert  of  Anjou,  the  Colonna  family,  and  the 

75 


PETRARCH  THE  MAN 

Visconti,  who  was  religious  enough  not  to  scandalize 
the  Church,  and  who  was  the  hero  of  a  romantic  love 
affair,  —  all  this  besides  being  a  really  remarkable 
scholar,  —  was  far  better  fitted  to  popularize  the  new 
and  great  movement  than  an  uncomely,  ungracious 
pedant,  or  even  a  man  as  powerful  and  as  superior  as 
Dante,  or  as  lovable  but  at  the  same  time  as  modest  as 
Boccaccio. 


76 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND 
READER 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND 
READER 


Other  men  before  Petrarch  had  loved  beautiful  speech, 
and  had  tried  to  acquire  a  beautiful  style:  Eginhard, 
for  instance,  Servatus  Lupus,  the  poets  of  Provence 
and  those  of  the  dolce  stil  nuovo,  the  author  of  the 
Novellino.  Dante's  remarks  upon  the  matter  show  how 
deeply  interested  he  was  in  it,  and  how  carefully  he 
considered  it.  The  story  which  Petrarch  tells  of  his 
youth,  of  his  father  throwing  his  Latin  books  into  the 
fire  because  he  thought  that  they  were  stumbHng- 
blocks  in  the  way  of  the  lad's  career  as  a  successful 
lawyer,  is  significant.  The  boy  was  early  attracted 
to  Cicero,  not  merely  because  of  the  ancient  Roman's 
philosophy,  but  also  by  the  ^'  dulcedo  "  and  "  sonori- 
tas  "  of  his  style.  He  is  always  seeking  those  quahties, 
to  gratify  his  craving  for  them;  and  he  finds  them,  of 
course,  principally  in  the  works  of  men  who  are  con- 
scious and  ambitious  literary  artists.  "  WTiat  attracted 
him  in  the  literature  of  antiquity,"  says  Pierre  de 
Nolhac,  "  was  its  being  a  work  of  art.  For  the  first 
time  in  centuries  (there  can  be  no  doubt  of  this),  per- 
fection of  form  determined  an  intellectual  preference. 
This  seeking  of  the  beautiful  for  itself  alone,  and  this 

79 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

using  it  as  a  criterion  to  establish  the  relative  value  of 
different  works  which  reveal  it  in  varying  degrees,  con- 
stituted one  of  the  most  fruitful  movements  initiated 
by  Petrarch.  At  the  same  time,  this  search  and  this 
use  restored  Hterary  criticism  at  the  very  end  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  which  had  lacked  it." 

Curious  it  is  to  see  how  Petrarch  applies  this  test  of 
eloquence,  not  merely  to  purely  hterary  works,  but  to 
matters  which  lie  rather  outside.  One  of  his  reasons  for 
espousing  the  cause  of  Plato  rather  than  that  of  Aris- 
totle was  that  the  latter  was  not  eloquent.  In  his 
polemics  against  the  lawyers,  he  declares  that  the  study 
of  law  has  degenerated  since  the  days  when  it  was 
associated  with  eloquence.  In  his  controversy  with 
the  Averroists,  he  reproaches  them,  not  for  their 
contempt  of  Christianity  nor  their  scorn  of  Plato,  but 
for  their  disdain  of  the  masters  of  beautiful  speech. 
"  What  shall  we  say,"  he  asks  {Sen.,  v,  2),  "  of  men  who 
scorn  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero,  the  bright  sun  of  elo- 
quence; of  those  who  scoff  at  Varro  and  Seneca,  and 
are  scandalized  at  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  the 
crude,  unfinished  style  of  Livy  and  Sallust  ?  Once  I 
happened  to  be  present  when  Virgil's  style  was  the 
subject  of  their  scornful  criticism.  Amazed  at  the 
crazy  outbreak,  I  turned  to  a  person  of  some  cultiva- 
tion and  asked  what  he  had  detected  in  this  famous 
man  to  arouse  such  a  storm  of  reproach.  Listen  to  the 
reply  he  made  me,  with  a  contemptuous  shrug  of  his 
shoulders:   ^  He  is  too  fond  of  conjunctions.'  "    Such 

80 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

judgments  as  this  last  criticism  might  come  from  men 
who  were  in  their  own  peculiar  way  students  of  elo- 
quence, but,  according  to  Petrarch,  eloquence  was  in 
their  eyes  an  art  unworthy  of  a  scholar. 

At  the  same  time,  it  cannot  be  said  that  his  fight  for 
eloquence  was  a  very  arduous  orte.  Indeed,  in  the 
opinion  of  jealous  rivals,  Petrarch's  championship 
threatened  to  jeopardize  the  cause,  inasmuch  as, 
according  to  them,  he  surrendered  himself  so  completely 
to  the  art  that  he  was  unable  to  distinguish  truth  from 
fiction  —  just  the  kind  of  accusation  that  the  champions 
of  Greek  rhetoric  had  had  to  endure  in  Rome.  We  need 
not  take  such  an  allegation  at  its  face  value;  still,  we 
can  be  quite  certain  that  if  Petrarch  had  not  been  such 
a  creative  master  himself,  his  critical  influence  would 
have  been  far  less  notable.  And  it  is  quite  important 
to  remember  that,  in  the  judgment  of  his  contempora- 
ries, he  was  eloquent  in  two  languages.  In  his  age, 
there  was  as  yet  no  really  great  humanist  who  confined 
himself  entirely  to  Latin.  Considering  how  much  has 
been  written  on  Dante's  views  as  to  the  respective 
merits  of  the  vernacular  and  Latin,  it  seems  expedient 
to  hear  what  Petrarch  has  to  say  on  the  subject,  since 
his  opinion  is  of  almost  equal  importance.  Inasmuch 
as  he  began  his  literary  career  as  a  writer  of  Italian 
verse,  it  will  be  appropriate  to  start  with  his  outgivings 
about  the  vulgar  tongue. 

Especially  illuminating  are  two  letters  written  to 
Boccaccio:   one,  which  we  have  discussed,  in  answer 

8i 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

to  the  charge  of  indifference  towards  Dante;  the  other 
in  reference  to  a  statement  made  by  their  mutual 
friend,  Donato,  that  Boccaccio  not  merely  regretted 
having  written  works  in  the  vernacular,  but  even  wished 
to  destroy  them.  Petrarch  writes,  dissuading  him  from 
doing  so.  "  I,"  he  says  {Sen.,  v,  2),  "  have  sometimes 
harbored  quite  the  opposite  design,  and  thought  of 
devoting  my  whole  attention  to  the  vernacular.  To  be 
sure,  the  Latin,  in  both  prose  and  poetry,  is  undoubtedly 
the  nobler  language,  but  for  that  very  reason  it  has  been 
so  thoroughly  developed  by  earher  writers  that  neither 
we  nor  anyone  else  may  expect  to  add  much  to  it.  The 
vernacular,  on  the  other  hand,  has  but  recently  been 
discovered,  and,  though  it  has  been  ravaged  by  many, 
it  still  remains  uncultivated,  in  spite  of  a  few  earnest 
laborers,  and  still  shows  itself  capable  of  much  im- 
provement and  enrichment.  Stimulated  by  this 
thought,  and  by  the  enterprise  of  youth,  I  began  an 
extensive  work  in  that  language.  I  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  structure,  I  got  together  my  lime,  and  stones,  and 
wood."  The  two  reasons  he  gives  for  abandoning  the 
work  are  substantially  these:  his  dislike  of  the  audience 
which  would  be  attracted  by  such  writings,  and  the 
lack  of  a  proper  grace  of  deUvery  on  the  part  of  those 
who  should  recite  them.  This  requires  a  little  explana- 
tion. 

One  of  the  things  that  characterize  the  Renaissance, 
that  distinguish  it  from  the  Middle  Ages,  is  the  fact 
that  it  affords  a  vastly  larger  number  of  persons  who 

82 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

can  appreciate  what  is  properly  called  literature.  They 
come  from  all  professions,  trades,  and  grades  of  society. 
This  is  a  change  which,  strangely  enough,  does  not 
always  appeal  to  the  author,  in  spite  of  his  desire  for 
universality.  Dante  proposes  to  write  his  Commentary 
in  Italian,  to  make  it  accessible  to  his  own  countrymen, 
and  not  to  the  paUid  Latinate  student  of  any  and  every 
nationality  —  Italian,  German,  French,  English.  But 
he  writes  for  the  ItaHan  of  noble  heart,  for  the  moral  and 
intellectual  aristocracy  of  the  dolce  stil  nuovo.  Well, 
Petrarch  carries  this  feeling  to  a  greater  extreme.  He 
hates  hoi  polloi  as  much  as  Horace  does,  and  expresses 
his  feehngs  even  more  frequently  and  more  bitterly. 
In  a  poem  he  describes  the  crowd  as  '^  hateful  and 
hostile  to  me";  in  a  Latin  letter  (Sen.,  viii,  7)  he 
declares  that  no  beast  is  more  tiresome  to  him  than  the 
crowd.  Referring  to  Dante,  he  says  (Fam.,  xxi,  15): 
"  Who,  indeed,  could  fill  me  with  envy,  me  who  do  not 
envy  Virgil,  unless  perchance  I  should  be  envious  of  the 
hoarse  applause  which  our  poet  enjoys  from  the  tavern- 
keepers,  fullers,  butchers,  and  others  of  that  class  who 
dishonor  those  they  would  praise  ?  But,  far  from 
deserving  such  popular  recognition,  I  congratulate 
myself,  on  the  contrary,  that  along  mth  Virgil  and 
Homer  I  am  free  from  it,  inasmuch  as  I  fully  realize 
how  little  the  plaudits  of  the  unschooled  multitude 
weigh  with  scholars." 

It   seems   extraordinary   that    such   coarse   people 
should  have  been  familiar  with  Dante;  but  in  that  age, 

83 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

when  printing  was  unknown  and  manuscripts  were  ex- 
pensive, the  transmission  of  Hterature  was  more  or  less 
oral.  The  jongleur  was  still  extant,  and  came  to  Pe- 
trarch, just  as  his  predecessors  used  to  go,  two  centuries 
before,  to  the  Provencal  poets;  and  he  entertained  not 
merely  the  mob  in  the  square,  but  kings  (see  Sen.,  v,  2). 
Petrarch  writes  to  Boccaccio:  "You  are  famihar,  no 
doubt,  with  that  widely  distributed  and  vulgar  set  of 
men  who  live  by  words  (and  those  not  their  own),  and 
who  have  increased  to  such  an  irritating  extent  among 
us.  They  are  persons  of  no  great  abihty,  but  of  reten- 
tive memories.  They  haunt  the  antechambers  of  kings 
and  potentates,  naked,  were  it  not  for  the  poetic  vesture 
they  have  filched  from  others.  Any  especially  good  bit 
which  this  or  that  author  has  turned  off  they  seize 
upon,  particularly  if  it  is  in  the  mother  tongue.  In  this 
way  they  strive  to  gain  the  favor  of  the  nobility,  and 
procure  money,  clothes,  or  other  gifts.  Their  stock  in 
trade  is  partly  picked  up  here  and  there,  partly  ob- 
tained directly  from  the  writers  themselves,  either  by 
begging  or,  when  cupidity  or  poverty  is  encountered, 
for  money.  You  can  easily  imagine  how  often  those 
fellows  have  pestered  me.  It  is  true  that  I  suffer  less 
than  formerly,  owing  to  my  altered  studies.''  He  then 
proceeds  to  tell  how  the  minstrels  have  been  made  rich 
by  his  poems.  Such  an  audience,  Petrarch  declares,  he 
does  not  desire. 

One  is  not  altogether  sure  of  this:  he  is  too  avid  of 
praise  not  to  welcome  a  tribute,  whatever  be  the  source. 

84 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

But  we  may  be  certain  that  in  one  kind  of  lamentation 
he  is  sincere.  We  can  imagine  that,  in  an  age  Hke  his, 
when  people  must  have  written  for  the  ear  as  well  as 
for  the  eye,  the  ear  was  probably  much  more  sensitive 
than  it  is  now;  and  we  can  picture  what  Petrarch 
suffered,  a  torture  described  by  him  in  the  same  oft- 
quoted  letter  to  Boccaccio.  "  This  is  not  the  least  of 
the  considerations  that  have  led  me  to  give  up  a  style 
of  composition  to  which  I  devoted  myself  in  my  early 
years.  I  feared  for  my  writings  the  same  fate  that  I 
had  seen  overtake  those  of  others,  especially  of  Dante. 
I  could  not  in  my  own  case  look  for  more  musical 
tongues  or  more  flexible  minds  among  the  common 
people  than  I  noted  in  the  rendering  of  those  authors 
whom  long  favor  and  habit  have  made  popular  in  the 
public  squares.  That  my  apprehensions  were  not  idle 
is  clear  from  the  fact  that  I  am  continually  tortured  by 
the  tongues  of  the  people  as  they  sing  the  few  produc- 
tions which  I  allowed  to  escape  me  in  my  youth.  I  in- 
dignantly reject  and  hate  what  I  once  loved,  and  day 
by  day  walk  the  streets  with  vexation,  and  execrate  my 
own  talents.  Everywhere  I  behold  a  crowd  of  ignorant 
fellows,  everywhere  I  find  my  Damoetas  at  the  street 
corner  ready  to  murder  with  his  screeching  reed  my 
poor  sonnet.  Hearing  again  and  again  the  perfor- 
mances of  those  who  mangle,  rather  than  recite,  the 
works  of  others,  and  turning  the  matter  over  in  my 
mind,  I  concluded  that  I  was  building  upon  unstable 
earth  and  shifting  sand,  and  should,  if  I  went  on,  simply 

8s 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

waste  my  labors  and  see  the  work  of  my  hands  levelled 
by  the  common  herd.  Like  one  who  finds  a  great 
serpent  across  his  path,  I  stopped  and  changed  my 
route  for  a  higher  and  more  direct  one,  I  hope." 

Once  again  the  question  arises  as  to  whether  Petrarch 
is  giving  us  his  real  opinion  when  he  says  that  Latin  is 
preferable  to  the  vernacular.  Was  he  not  far  more  in 
doubt  than  he  would  have  us  imagine,  and,  as  he  grew 
older,  did  he  not  arrive  at  very  much  the  same  position 
as  that  taken  by  Dante  ?  Here  are  some  of  the  facts 
which  would  seem  to  justify  such  an  opinion.  He  not 
only  began  his  career  as  a  writer  of  Italian  verse,  but  he 
continued  composing  it  until  the  very  end  of  his  life,  in 
spite  of  his  statement  that  he  stopped  short  in  his  path 
and  changed  his  route.  About  1350,  —  when  he  was 
no  longer  a  young  man  and  had  already  written  his 
Secretum  and  a  part  of  his  Africa,  the  work  most  in- 
timately connected  with  his  desire  for  fame,  —  he 
wished  to  finish  the  "  trifles,"  of  which,  years  before, 
he  had  started  making  a  collection,  abandoned  because 
of  new  plans.  In  other  words,  he  desired  to  complete 
his  edition  of  the  lyrics,  in  order  to  have  a  free  hand  for 
the  Triumphs,  at  which  he  was  working;  but  he  did  not 
succeed  until  1359.  This  is  the  collection  known  as  the 
Chigi  MS.,  No.  176.  From  1360  to  1365  or  1366  there 
is  another  interval,  during  which  he  thinks  more  of  the 
Triumphs  and  the  works  in  Latin.  In  1367  begins  the 
famous  edition,  a  large  part  of  which  we  have  in  his  own 
handwriting.    This  collection  was  destined  for  Pandolfo 

86 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

Malatesta.  Of  some  of  the  poems  which  make  up  the 
Canzoniere  he  speaks  in  two  letters  addressed  to  the 
same  person,  calling  them  "  Nugellas  meas  vulgares." 
"  Greatly  against  my  will  I  confess  it  to  you,  now  that 
I  am  an  old  man:  I  published  these  trifles  written  in 
my  youth,  which  I  now  wish  had  never  become  known. 
But  how  can  I  prevent  it  ?  For  a  long  time  they  have 
been  in  the  hands  of  many,  and  are  read  more  willingly 
than  works  composed  when  I  was  more  mature  in 
mind/^  For  the  crudity  of  the  style  he  apologises  on 
the  ground  that  most  of  these  poems  were  done  when 
he  was  young,  saying  (Var.,  9;  cf.  Sen.,  xiii,  10):  "if 
you  find  many  errors,  I  beg  you  to  pardon  me,  because 
of  the  infinite  things  which  take  up  my  time  and  which 
have  forced  me  to  hand  over  the  revision  to  others." 
But  he  goes  on  to  admit:  "  I  have  still  many  more  of 
these  vernacular  poems  written  on  sheets  so  torn  and 
blurred  that  it  is  difficult  to  read  them.  And  when, 
from  time  to  time,  I  have  a  day's  leisure,  I  amuse  my- 
self by  mending  them."  This  much,  at  least,  is  evident 
from  the  letters  and  from  the  facts  enumerated,  that 
at  the  close  of  his  life,  as  well  as  at  the  beginning, 
Petrarch  was  occupied  to  some  extent  with  the  ver- 
nacular. He  acknowledges,  just  before  his  death,  the 
great  popularity  of  his  Italian  poems.  Not  merely  does 
he  prepare  an  authoritative  edition  of  his  love  songs, 
but  it  is  clear  that  he  desires  to  appeal  to  the  erudite  as 
well  as  the  ordinary  reader.  This  desire  is  evident  in 
the  title  which  he  gives  to  his  allegorical  poems  in  terza 

87 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

rima,  the  Trionfi,  and  also  in  the  name  he  bestows  on 
the  Canzoniere,  Rerum  Vulgarium  Fragmenta. 

These  are  arguments  which  might  well  be  adduced  to 
prove  a  literary  change  of  view  on  Petrarch's  part. 
Another  is  the  extreme  care  that  he  took  in  polishing 
his  verses.  He  speaks  of  crudeness  of  style,  but  this 
means  nothing.  A  sixteenth  century  Itahan,  Ludovico 
Beccadelli  (1502-72),  speaking  of  some  Petrarchan 
manuscripts,  says  that,  apart  from  the  handwriting, 
which  resembles  that  of  the  poet's  other  works,  they 
were  corrected  and  altered  in  so  many  ways  that  no 
other  than  the  author  could  have  done  it.  In  the  said 
rhymes  "  one  sees  evidences  of  Petrarch's  great  care  in 
improving  them,  changing  his  phrases  four  and  five 
times;  and  it  is  a  noticeable  thing  that,  aside  from  the 
corrections,  everything  is  written  in  Latin,  which 
sometimes  gives  the  reasons  for  the  alteration  and 
always  notes  down  the  date  of  writing."  In  the  poems 
themselves  Petrarch  has  not  a  little  to  say  about  style. 
In  one,  SHo  avesse  pensato  che  si  care,  he  says  that  if 
he  had  known  his  love  poetry  would  give  such  pleasure, 
he  would  have  written  much  more,  and  in  a  more  pol- 
ished manner;  his  one  desire  at  first  having  been  to 
relieve  his  heart  and  not  to  acquire  fame.  But  now  that 
Laura  is  dead,  and  the  time  has  come  when  he  would 
like  to  please  the  fastidious,  he  no  longer  possesses  so 
soft  a  file  as  to  make  the  dull  rh3nnes  sweet  and  clear. 
In  another,  Mentre  che^l  cor  da  gli  amorosi  vermi,  he  says 
almost  the  contrary:   when  he  was  young  and  loved 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

Laura,  both  that  soft  file  and  the  rhymes  were  lacking; 
if  Laura  had  lived,  now  that  he  is  a  skilled  poet  with  a 
mature  style,  he  would  have  shattered  rocks  and  made 
them  weep  with  his  sweetness.  In  spite  of  this  incon- 
sistency, it  would  appear  from  both  passages  that 
Petrarch,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  was  really  very 
much  interested  in  the  vernacular. 

But,  however  this  may  be,  did  he  really  come  gradu- 
ally to  accept  Dante's  point  of  view  ?  I  do  not  think 
so.  If,  as  he  said,  his  largest  audience  was  made  up  of 
lovers  of  his  Itahan  verse,  he  loved  praise  too  much  not 
to  write  for  this  pubhc;  and,  writing,  how  could  this 
lover  of  style  do  anything  but  poUsh  his  works  to  the 
very  best  of  his  ability  ?  Had  he  been  as  clairvoyant, 
as  prophetic,  as  is  Dante  in  the  Divine  Comedy^  he 
would  have  seen  that  he  spoke  more  truly  than  he  in 
fact  realized,  when  he  said:  "  From  me  came  words 
which  I  hope  will  make  me  immortal."  His  work  as 
pohsher  of  the  language  does  indeed  make  him  the  first 
truly  modern  ItaUan  writer;  for  Dante,  from  the  stand- 
point of  present  usage,  is  somewhat  archaic.  That  was 
one  great  feat  which  Petrarch  accompHshed,  perhaps 
unwittingly.  Now,  Petrarch  tells  us  that  he  had  thought 
of  writing  in  the  vernacular  principally  because  it  was  a 
new  mediiun,  not  as  yet  perfected,  while  Latin  —  the 
nobler  language  —  had  been  so  polished  that  no  one 
could  hope  to  rival  the  writers  of  antiquity.  At  the 
same  time,  a  reason  not  unlike  this  must  have  led  him 
to  write  in  Latin,  even  though,  more  than  he  perhaps 

89 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

knew,  his  desire  was  impossible  of  accomplishment.  In 
Italian  style,  the  rivalry  of  men  like  Cino  and  Dante 
was  formidable.  But  no  one  since  the  end  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  in  his  opinion,  had  written  really  beautiful 
Latin.  If  he  was  to  be  the  first  of  the  modern  men, 
what  a  feat  it  would  be  if  he  succeeded  in  meeting  the 
authors  of  antiquity  upon  their  own  ground,  and, 
working  at  a  disadvantage,  produced  books  which 
would  place  him  on  an  equal  footing  with  them!  He 
made  the  attempt,  and  his  success  was  great  and  legiti- 
mate. This  does  not  mean  that  he  wrote  perfect  Latin. 
It  is  easy  enough  for  any  Latin  scholar  of  to-day  to 
expose  his  shortcomings.  They  were  remarked  and 
commented  upon  almost  immediately  after  his  death. 
It  was  well  for  him  that  he  could  not  look  forward  a 
century  after  his  death,  and  see  how  severely  posterity 
would  judge  his  darling  achievements !  Possibly  his  pain 
might  have  been  alleviated  by  the  spectacle  of  the  fate 
which  awaited  other  Latinists,  his  detractors;  for  the 
chief  ambition  of  almost  every  humanist  was  to  write 
good  Latin.  As  time  went  on,  the  standards  were 
raised  —  we  may  almost  say,  perverted;  and  inevitable 
was  the  punishment  of  those  who  in  writing  had  had 
recourse  to  a  medium  not  their  own.  If  they  escaped 
the  furious  invectives  of  jealous  contemporaries,  they 
encountered  the  indifference  or  the  contempt  of  their 
successors.  Scholars  of  to-day,  in  their  judgments  of  the 
style  of  the  humanists  of  the  Renaissance,  are  more 
lenient  than  were  many  of  the  humanists  themselves, 

90 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

And  therefore,  while  attention  would  still  naturally  be 
called,  by  a  latter-day  Latinist,  to  Petrarch's  deviations 
from  classical  usage,  most  modern  critics  would  ac- 
knowledge that  the  fourteenth  century  scholar  had 
succeeded  in  fashioning  for  himself  a  really  excellent 
style.  Easy,  supple,  often  graceful,  always  pleasant  to 
read,  it  possesses  what  Dante  calls  the  special  excellence 
of  Latin,  ability  to  make  known  the  concepts  of  the 
writer. 

As  important  as  Petrarch's  style  itself  is  his  theory 
concerning  style  in  general.  In  some  of  his  literary 
principles  he  is  still  medieval;  but  on  this  question  he 
can  be  very  modem  and  sensible.  Just  as,  for  centuries, 
Latin  was  engaged  in  a  life  and  death  struggle  with  the 
vernacular,  so,  in  the  narrower  field  of  Latin  itself, 
there  was,  for  generations,  a  constant  duel  between  the 
Ciceronians  and  the  anti-Ciceronians.  Petrarch  saw 
that  the  great  danger  in  writing  Latin  was  slavish  imita- 
tion; and  in  what  he  has  to  say  about  imitation  and  ' 
individuality  he  appears  at  his  very  best  as  a  literary 
critic.  On  one  occasion,  writing  to  Boccaccio  {Fam.j 
XXIII,  19),  he  tells  of  a  companion  of  his,  a  young  man 
of  great  promise,  who,  as  a  result  of  his  experiments, 
is  to  fashion  a  style  of  his  own.  To  win  success,  he 
must  avoid  imitation,  —  or,  better,  conceal  it,  —  so  as 
to  give  the  impression,  not  of  copying,  but  rather  of  >) 
bringing  to  modern  Italy,  from  the  writers  of  old,  some- 
thing new.  An  imitator  must  see  to  it  that  what  he 
writes,  though  similar,  be  not  the  very  same.    Literary 

91 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

similarity,  moreover,  should  not  resemble  that  of  a 
painting  or  a  statue  to  the  person  represented,  but 
rather  that  of  a  son  to  a  father;  in  which  case  there  is 
often  great  difference  in  the  features  and  members,  and 
yet,  after  all,  —  hovering  about  the  face,  and  especially 
the  eyes,  —  a  shadowy  something  akin  to  what  painters 
call  one's  air,  out  of  which  there  grows  a  likeness  that, 
immediately  upon  sight  of  the  child,  calls  up  the  father. 
So,  too,  in  literary  imitation  the  likeness  must  be 
elusive,  something  impossible  to  seize  upon,  except  as 
the  result  of  a  sort  of  stiU  hunt,  a  quahty  to  be  felt 
rather  than  defined.  A  letter  equally  interesting  is  one 
addressed  also  to  Giovanni  Boccaccio  {Fam,,  xxii,  2), 
in  which  Petrarch  has  much  to  say  about  plagiarism. 
"  Any  garment  is  suitable  for  an  actor,  but  not  every 
style  for  a  writer.  Each  one  should  have  his  own  style. 
In  our  persons,  in  our  movements,  in  our  voice  and 
speech,  every  one  of  us  possesses  something  that  is 
individual,  our  very  own,  which  we  should  rather 
polish  and  correct  than  exchange  for  another's."  When 
Petrarch  talks  like  that,  we  do  not  feel  incHned  for  an 
instant  to  dispute  his  lofty  position;  and  it  can  be 
fairly  said  that  what  he  aimed  at,  he  attained.  He  is 
the  first  man  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  whose  Latin 
style  is  really  polished;  and,  if  it  has  certain  defects 
when  compared  with  that  of  Cicero  and  Sallust,  it  has 
this  in  common  —  real  individuality. 

But  Petrarch  is  not  always  what  we  should  call  the 
true  literary  critic,  the  first  author  (as  Vossler  says) 

92 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

who,  together  with  eloquence,  rehabilitated  literary  criti- 
cism. Like  Cicero,  he  insists  that  morality  and  wisdom 
must  accompany  eloquence;  and,  while  he  appears  to 
be  always  conscious  of  a  real  difference  between  prose 
and  verse  style,  he  is  prone  to  lay  down  the  same  rules 
for  eloquence  and  for  poetry.  When,  therefore,  we  turn 
to  Petrarch  the  theorist  of  poetic  composition,  we  feel 
as  though  he  had  relapsed  again  into  the  remote  past. 
Fortunately  for  him,  he  was  in  his  practice  not  entirely 
faithful  to  his  precepts;  otherwise  his  works  would 
hardly  have  lived  until  to-day.  Only  a  man  like  Dante 
could  work  at  such  a  disadvantage  and  be  successful. 
Petrarch  expresses  in  a  number  of  places  his  ideas  as  to 
the  true  province  of  poetry.  Perhaps  the  most  impor- 
tant document  is  the  oration  he  made  on  receiving  the 
poet's  crown;  next  is  a  letter  to  his  brother  Gherardo. 
Instead  of  quoting  them,  however,  I  wish  to  cite  some 
remarks  made  to  Nelli  about  his  friend  Rienzi  as  a 
poet,  which  show  he  was  not  entirely  blind.  After 
acknowledging  that  Rienzi  was  eloquent,  he  says 
(Fam.,  XIII,  6):  "I  believe,  too,  that  he  reads  all  the 
poets  generally  known,  but  for  all  that  he  is  not  a  poet, 
any  more  than  one  is  a  weaver  who  wears  a  garment 
made  by  another's  hands.  Even  the  writing  of  verses 
does  not  suffice  by  itself  to  earn  one  the  title  of  poet. 
This  man  has  never  composed  a  single  genuine  poem 
which  has  reached  my  ears,  nor  has  he  applied  himself 
to  such  a  task;  and  without  application  nothing,  how- 
ever easy,  can  be  well  done."    Then,  speaking  of  the 

93 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

prevalent  hope  that  Rienzi^s  reputation  as  a  poet 
might  save  him  from  violence,  he  declares:  "  If  Cola 
can,  in  such  imminent  peril,  find  shelter  beneath  the 
poet's  aegis,  why  should  not  Virgil  escape  in  the  same 
way  ?  Yet  Virgil  would  certainly  have  perished  at  the 
hands  of  the  same  judges,  because  he  is  held  to  be,  not 
a  poet,  but  a  magician.  Let  me  tell  you  one  thing  which 
will  amuse  you  more:  I  myself,  than  whom  no  one  has 
been  more  hostile  to  divination  and  magic,  have  been 
occasionally  pronounced  a  magician,  by  quite  as  acute 
judges,  on  account  of  my  fondness  for  Virgil.  How 
very  low  have  our  studies  sunk!  "  In  this  passage, 
Petrarch,  laughing  at  a  senseless  medieval  superstition 
from  which  he  was  quite  free,  seems  like  one  of  us 
modems;  but  at  the  same  time  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether,  for  all  his  Hterary  taste,  he  actually  appre- 
ciated those  qualities  which  to  us  are  the  real  beauties 
of  Virgil.  For  instance,  he  seems  to  regard  as  partic- 
ularly fine  those  passages  which  impress  us  as  being 
the  most  rhetorical.  In  this,  of  course,  he  is  no  worse 
than  many  of  the  later  Romans,  for  whom  poetry  was 
a  rhetorical  exercise.  With  that  favorite  theme  of  dis- 
putations in  the  late  Empire,  —  "  Was  Virgil  greater 
as  orator  or  as  poet  ?  "  —  we  might  compare  a  remark 
of  Petrarch's:  "  Our  beloved  Cicero  is  beyond  doubt 
the  father  of  Latin  eloquence.  Next  to  him  comes 
Virgil;  or,  perhaps,  since  there  are  some  who  dislike 
the  order  in  which  I  place  them,  I  had  better  say  that 
Tully  and  Maro  are  the  two  parents  of  Roman  litera- 

94 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

ture.'^    It  is  evident  that  Petrarch  regards  eloquence 
as  synonymous  with  beautiful  style. 

Again,  if  he  saw  how  absurd  it  was  to  regard  Virgil 
as  a  magician,  he  was  still  medieval  enough  to  look  upon 
the  Latin  poet  as  a  great  teacher,  and  to  beheve  that 
what  we  regard  as  a  straightforward  narrative  is  really 
a  veil  of  allegory.  He  actually  dazed  Robert  of  Naples 
by  his  exposition  of  Virgil,  revealing  recondite  mean- 
ings which  that  monarch  had  never  suspected.  A  fine 
debauch  of  this  kind  is  found  in  a  letter  to  Federico 
Aretino  (Sen.,  iv,  5),  in  which  Petrarch  explains  the 
true  significance  of  Virgil.  It  is  hardly  better  than  the 
earHer  medieval  incursions  into  this  field  —  those  of 
Fulgentius,  Bernard  of  Chartres,  and  John  of  Salis- 
bury. If  he  had  such  archaic  ideas  about  the  Mneid,  he 
held  equally  strange  ones  about  the  nature  of  poetry  in 
general.  Apparently  he  had  not  progressed  beyond  the 
stage  of  Mussato.  ''  The  fact  is,  poetry  is  very  far 
from  being  opposed  to  theology.  Does  that  surprise 
you  ?  One  may  almost  say  that  theology  actually  is 
poetry,  poetry  concerning  God.  To  caU  Christ  now  a 
lion,  now  a  lamb,  now  a  worm  —  what,  pray,  is  that  if 
not  poetical  ?  What  are  the  parables  of  our  Lord 
except  allegories  ?  Allegory  is  the  very  warp  and  woof 
of  all  poetry.  Now  we  can  see  how  Aristotle  came  to 
say  that  the  first  poets  were  the  first  theologians. '^  As 
Vossler  remarks,  it  never  occurred  to  Mussato  and  to 
Petrarch  that  Aristotle  was  really  casting  discredit  upon 
the  theologians  by  implying  that  their  teaching  should 

95 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

be  regarded  as  invention,  to  be  received  with  caution 
by  philosophers.  For  the  early  Renaissance  writers, 
theology  ennobled  poetry. 

Nevertheless,  despite  these  utterances  of  Petrarch, 
the  conception  of  the  true  nature  of  the  poet  was 
changing,  had  already  changed.  The  fourteenth  cen- 
tury poet  is  no  longer  Dante's  poet-theologian.  He  is . 
the  man  of  eloquence,  of  Latin  eloquence,  the  orator. 
The  greatest  Italian  poet  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
after  Dante,  still  preferred  Cicero  to  Virgil,  and  looked 
upon  verse  as  only  a  finer  sort  of  prose.  It  is  dishearten- 
ing to  see  this,  and  it  augurs  ill  for  the  verse  of  the 
hundred  years  to  come.  Fortunately  the  humanists 
were  not  absolute  masters  of  the  field. 

II 

If  Petrarch  disappoints  us  in  his  theorizing  about  the 
true  nature  of  poetry,  he  appears  to  far  greater  advan- 
tage as  a  scholar,  especially  in  his  love  of  books.  In 
this  there  is  no  room  for  petty  jealousy.  If  his  language 
at  times  seems  a  little  too  highly  colored,  that  excess  is 
due  simply  to  a  conventional  manner  of  expressing 
one's  self,  common  in  his  day. 

A  great  part  of  his  life  was  devoted  to  the  building  up 
of  his  library  by  copying  and  purchasing  books,  and  by 
obtaining  them  as  gifts.  At  first,  naturally,  he  was 
forced  to  do  much  of  the  copying  himself.  Then,  when 
his  income  increased  sufficiently,  he  employed  others, 
having  them  work  at  his  home  or  even  accompany  him 

96 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

on  his  travels.  Of  the  difficulties  he  encounters,  he  has 
a  great  deal  to  say.  '^  Those  fellows,"  he  declares  {Sen., 
V,  i),  "  are  verily  the  plague  of  noble  minds.  A  work 
written  in  a  few  months  cannot  be  copied  in  as  many 
years.  Such  is  the  ignorance  and  laziness,  the  arro- 
gance of  these  fellows,  that,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  they 
do  not  reproduce  what  you  give  them,  but  write  out 
something  quite  different."  So,  even  when  oppressed 
by  worries  and  difficulties,  he  finds  it  necessary  (Fam., 
XVIII,  12)  to  press  his  weary  fingers  and  his  worn  and 
ragged  pen  into  service,  and  copy  a  Cicero  lent  him  by 
his  friend  Lapo  Castiglionchio,  consoHng  himself  with 
the  thought  that  there  was  one  more  point  of  contact 
between  himself  and  Cicero,  the  fact  that  both  had  had 
to  submit  to  just  such  drudgery.  In  his  youth  he  had 
made  a  number  of  journeys  to  obtain  old  books.  Al- 
ready he  had  laid  the  foundations  of  his  collection  at 
Avignon  —  which  perhaps  was  not  quite  so  badly  off 
as  he  describes.  In  Paris  he  visited  the  library  of  the 
Sorbonne  —  Paris,  which  his  friend,  Richard  de  Bury, 
called  the  Paradise  of  the  world,  because  of  the  oppor- 
tunities it  offered  to  men  of  his  tastes.  In  Belgium  he 
went  about  visiting  convents,  where  he  found  books  new 
to  him,  copying  (he  had  great  difficulty  in  obtaining 
ink  at  Li^ge),  and  adding  to  his  stores.  Naturally  Italy 
is  the  most  delightful  hunting-ground,  especially  Rome. 
He  describes  himself  travelling  about  with  his  baggage 
of  books,  cumbersome  enough  but  a  delight  to  his  eyes. 
As,  in  spite  of  all  his  travelling,  he  could  not  be  ubiqui- 

97 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

tous,  he  had  to  rely  upon  the  aid  of  others,  and  this  help 
was  given  him  most  ungrudgingly  by  high  and  low. 
Sygeros,  the  envoy  of  the  emperor  of  Constantinople, 
sent  him  his  copy  of  Homer.  To  Boccaccio  he  was 
indebted  for  works  of  Varro,  Cicero,  and  St.  Augustine. 
For  others,  to  Nelli  and  Bruni.  In  his  letter  to  Luca 
della  Penna  he  writes:  "  When  my  friends  would  ask 
whether  I  wanted  anything  from  their  country,  I  would 
answer  that  I  wanted  only  books,  and  above  all  those 
of  Cicero.  How  many  prayers  I  have  addressed,  how 
many  have  I  sent,  not  only  to  Italy,  but  to  France, 
Germany,  and  even  Spain  and  England,  and  (would  you 
beUeve  it  ?)  to  Greece.  Although  often  disappointed, 
I  cannot  cease  from  continually  seeking." 

Petrarch  is  the  real  bibliomaniac;  he  describes  his 
passion  as  an  insatiable  desire:  "  the  hunger  for  books 
is  keener  than  that  for  any  other  thing,  —  gold,  horses, 
silver,  —  which  give  but  a  mute  pleasure,  while  that  of 
books  penetrates  to  the  marrow  of  our  bones."  Books 
converse  with  us,  counsel  us,  unite  with  us.  So  Pe- 
trarch, Hke  all  earnest  book-lovers,  always  thinks  and 
frequently  speaks  of  his  books  as  real  friends.  He 
writes  of  the  joy  with  which  the  inhabitants  of  his 
library  receive  a  Latin  translation  of  Homer.  He  talks 
of  a  volume  of  Cicero  which  fell  and  bruised  his  leg  and 
caused  him  considerable  trouble  for  a  long  time;  jesting 
at  the  unkindness  of  Cicero  to  one  of  his  most  faithful 
servants.  The  closeness  of  the  tie  which  bound  him  to 
his  books  is  shown  by  bits  of  personal  reflection,  memo- 

98 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

randa  of  things  important  to  him,  sorrowful  or  other- 
wise, with  which  the  margins  of  his  manuscripts  are 
filled.  The  best  known  of  these  is  the  note  which  relates 
to  the  death  of  Laura,  in  his  copy  of  Virgil.  Another 
famous  one  is  that  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  death  of 
his  son  Johannes,  bom  to  give  him  labor  and  grief  — 
"  a  source  of  perpetual  and  heavy  care  in  his  youth,  and 
by  his  death  a  cause  of  deep  pain."  The  manuscripts 
are  full,  too,  of  remarks  of  a  different  kind,  principally 
observations  which  show  conclusively  that  he  well 
digested  what  he  read.  Others  are  curious,  some  are 
droll,  some  very  mysterious. 

Petrarch  did  not  buy  for  show,  although  he  loved 
beautiful  books,  good  bindings,  and  neat,  clear  hand- 
writing. The  delight  that  he  himself  took  in  his  books 
he  wished  others  to  share  with  him;  and  so  he  had 
copies  made  and  distributed  them.  One  great  desire 
of  this  true  humanist  was  to  leave  his  collection  in  such 
a  state  that  it  might  be  accessible  to  all  who  loved 
literature.  Apparently  he  is  the  first  man  of  modern 
times  to  conceive  of  founding  a  public  library.  He 
chose  Venice  as  the  safest  place.  In  his  offer  to  the 
Grand  Council  he  is  very  explicit  as  to  what  he  wishes 
to  have  done.  "  Francesco  Petrarcha  desires,  if  it  is 
the  pleasure  of  Christ  and  the  blessed  St.  Mark,  that 
the  church  of  the  latter  inherit  a  certain  number  of 
books  which  he  has  now  or  which  he  may  possess  some 
day,  on  condition  that  they  be  not  sold  nor  dispersed  in 
any  way  whatsoever,  but  be  preserved  forever  in  a  spe- 

99 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

cial  place  to  be  chosen  later,  sheltered  from  fire  and  rain 
for  the  honor  of  the  donor  and  the  consolation  and 
profit  of  men  of  letters  and  nobles  of  this  city.  He  hopes 
that  from  time  to  time  this  glorious  city  may  add  other 
books  at  the  expense  of  the  State,  and  that  nobles  who 
love  their  country,  and  even  foreigners,  may  leave  by 
will  a  part  of  their  property  to  the  said  church,  and  that 
in  this  way  the  collection  may  become  a  great  and 
famous  library,  like  those  of  antiquity."  The  Grand 
Council  gratefully  accepted  the  offer,  assigning  a 
palace  on  the  Riva  degli  Schiavoni.  For  some  reason 
or  other,  the  scheme  most  unfortunately  fell  through. 
Petrarch  found  it  pleasanter  to  live  at  Padua  or  Arqua, 
where  he  could  have  his  garden.  There  were  wars 
between  Padua  and  Venice,  and  ultimately,  some  years 
after  Petrarch's  death,  without  any  blame  attaching  to 
Petrarch  or  to  Venice,  the  books  were  sold  and  dis- 
persed. Perhaps  Francesco  of  Carrara,  the  lord  of 
Padua,  was  the  guilty  person.  He  retained  the  greater 
part  of  the  library  for  himself;  but  when  he  was  de- 
feated by  Venice  and  Gian  Galeazzo  Visconti,  he  had 
to  surrender  his  books,  with  other  property,  to  the 
Visconti  family. 

So  far  as  the  make-up  of  Petrarch's  library  is  con- 
cerned, it  was  most  complete  in  poetry.  Only  one  great 
poet  was  missing,  and  that  was  Lucretius.  Of  the  works 
of  some  of  the  other  poets  he  knew  only  a  part:  Plau- 
tus,  Tibullus,  and  Martial.  As  might  be  expected,  he 
was  fondest  of  Virgil.    But  he  knew  all  of  Ovid,  and 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

drew  especially  upon  that  poet's  erotic  verse  —  which 
is  rather  curious,  for  he  objected  to  Ovid's  sensuality, 
and  his  pleasure  in  Catullus  was  marred  by  the  presence 
of  the  same  defect.  In  his  later  years,  faithful  to  the 
allegorical  tendency  of  his  age  and  of  his  own  mind,  he 
tried  to  read  into  Ovid  a  hidden  moral  meaning.  After 
Virgil,  he  makes  most  of  Horace,  and  it  is  due  to  him 
that  all  the  works  of  Horace  enjoy  equal  esteem;  for 
up  to  his  day  the  odes,  the  lyric  verse,  and  the  epodes 
were  not  so  well  liked  as  the  epistles  and  the  satires. 
Persius,  Juvenal,  and  the  comic  poets  he  admired, 
principally,  perhaps,  because  they  offered  such  rich 
storehouses  of  maxims.  It  is  to  his  credit  that,  while 
possessing  little  real  affection  for  Lucan,  he  had  the 
sense  to  perceive  that  this  author  should  be  regarded 
as  a  poet  rather  than  as  an  historian.  For  the  Christian 
Latin  poets  he  cared  little,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  some 
of  them  were  devout  churchmen.  Their  style,  his  criti- 
cal taste  told  him,  was  inferior  to  that  of  the  models  he 
used,  and  style,  after  all,  was  his  principal  criterion. 

As  the  absence  of  Lucretius  constituted  the  great  gap 
in  his  collection  of  poets,  the  lack  of  Tacitus  was  the  ■ 
principal  lacuna  in  that  of  the  prose  writers.  His  ideal, 
of  course,  was  Cicero;  and  Petrarch  was  a  better 
critic  of  Cicero  than  of  Virgil,  for  he  not  only  appre- 
ciated his  style  but  correctly  judged  his  character.  In 
regard  to  his  acquaintance  with  Cicero's  works,  the 
most  interesting  question  always  has  been:  did  he  or 
did  he  not  possess  one  entitled  De  Gloria  ?    He  tells  us 


>5  2^'«  )«\  •»•*•* 
,1  P'i  •>.    «  ••- 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

in  his  Old  Age  (Sen,  xvi,  i)  that  he  lent  it  to  his  old 
teacher  Convenevole,  who  had  become  very  poor  and 
who  needed  it  for  his  work;  but  unfortunately  the  old 
man  pawned  it,  and  it  was  never  recovered.  This  story 
is  told  with  much  circumstantial  detail;  yet  it  is  almost 
certain  that  Petrarch  never  possessed  a  copy.  Voigt 
thinks  that  perhaps  he  had  found  such  a  title  at  the 
head  of  some  chapters  of  the  Tusculan  Disputations. 
Nolhac  is  incHned  to  beheve  that  Petrarch  was  the 
victim  of  his  own  imagination:  he  did  lend  books  to 
Convenevole;  he  had  noticed  somewhere  some  fine 
passages  on  Glory,  and,  having  learned  subsequently 
that  Cicero  had  composed  a  work  on  that  subject  (dear 
to  him  above  all  others),  he  wondered  in  after  years 
whether  he  had  not  possessed  it,  until  he  finally  con- 
vinced himself  that  he  had.  But  if  he  really  had  owned 
it,  it  is  almost  certain  that  he  would  have  said  so  long 
before;  and  he  surely  would  have  remembered  more 
about  it. 

There  is  another  favorite,  to  whom  indeed  Petrarch 
did  not  surrender  himself  with  quite  such  self-abandon- 
ment, yet  with  whom  he  had  so  much  in  common  that 
after  his  death  he  was  called  —  by  one  scholar,  at  least 
—  the  modem  Seneca.  Petrarch  particularly  enjoyed 
the  moralizing  of  Seneca,  and,  as  I  have  said,  this  fond- 
ness to  a  considerable  extent  spoiled  his  letters.  He 
could  not  get  away  from  Seneca's  influence,  even  when 
he  wished  to,  or  thought  he  had  succeeded.  He  im- 
agined he  derived  consolation  from  reading  Seneca's 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

moral  dissertations,  but  it  is  quite  likely  that  they 
heightened  his  melancholia.  To  Seneca's  weaknesses 
he  was  no  more  blind  than  he  was  to  Cicero's;  and  in 
various  ways,  especially  as  a  critic,  he  showed  himself 
an  independent  scholar,  not  a  sheep  to  follow  blindly 
the  lead  of  others.  Although  it  was  not  until  about  a 
century  later  that  the  authenticity  of  the  so-called 
correspondence  between  St.  Paul  and  Seneca  was 
attacked,  Petrarch  saw  more  clearly  than  his  contem- 
poraries that  Seneca  was  not  a  Christian.  He  doubted 
whether  Seneca  was  the  author  of  the  Octavia,  but 
unfortunately  he  had  suspicions  of  all  the  plays. 

With  Quintilian  he  became  acquainted  late  and  in- 
completely, but  he  took  to  him  naturally  because  of  his 
sensible  remarks  upon  rhetoric.  Nolhac  says  that  in  no 
other  of  Petrarch's  manuscripts  does  one  see  so  mark- 
edly his  hostility  towards  the  dialecticians  and  scholas- 
tics of  his  time. 

Pliny  the  elder  was  for  him  a  source  of  varied  infor- 
mation, just  the  person  to  interest  him  and  other 
Renaissance  men,  because  of  his  eager  inquisitiveness. 
At  the  same  time,  be  it  said  to  his  credit,  Petrarch 
shows  caution  in  accepting  his  statements.  Perhaps  it 
is  worth  remembering  that  it  was  especially  Pliny  the 
geographer  and  historian  of  art  who  appealed  to  him. 
Again,  it  was  PHny  who  inspired  him  to  make  the 
remark  that  he  stood,  as  it  were,  on  the  confines  of 
two  ages,  looking  at  the  same  time  forwards  and  back- 
wards. 

103 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

When  he  said  this,  he  was  thinking  of  PHny  the  his- 
torian, whose  historical  works  were  lost.  Of  historians 
he  was  particularly  fond,  feehng,  as  he  did,  that  he  was 
a  belated  man  of  antiquity  who  had  strayed  into  un- 
congenial surroundings,  and  that  authors  like  Livy  and 
the  letter- writing  Cicero  were  the  only  ones  who  could 
tell  him  about  this  lost  Eden,  and  perhaps  lead  him 
back  to  it,  during  the  precious  hours  he  spent  in  their 
company.  In  a  letter  to  Livy  (one  of  the  previously 
mentioned  letters  to  dead  authors)  he  says:  "  I  wish 
to  ojBFer  you  everlasting  thanks  especially  for  this,  that 
because  of  you  I  often  forget  present  ills;  that,  while 
reading  you,  I  picture  at  my  side  Comehus,  Scipio 
Africanus,  Brutus,  Cato,  and  have  the  illusion  of 
living  in  the  midst  of  these  great  men."  Other  Roman 
historians  with  whom  he  was  acquainted  we  can  do  no 
more  than  name:  Caesar,  Suetonius,  Sallust,  Justin, 
Valerius  Maximus.  It  should  be  reckoned  in  his  favor 
that  he  was  not  taken  in  by  Dictys  and  Dares,  nor  by 
the  fabulous  accounts  of  Alexander. 

As  regards  the  church  writers,  although  he  set  little 
store  by  Christian  poets,  he  had  the  greatest  admiration 
for  the  prose  authors,  for  Lactantius,  for  St.  Jerome, 
and  above  all  for  St.  Augustine,  whose  Confessions 
were,  one  cannot  help  feeling,  his  dearest  possession. 
It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  he  should  have  been  greatly 
drawn  towards  the  famous  schoolmen  who  were  more 
nearly  his  contemporaries;  but  there  was  one  who 
evidently  interested  him  deeply  although  he  was  aware 

104 


PETRARCH  THE  CRITIC  AND  READER 

of  the  man's  defects,  —  "his  faith,  as  I  hear,  being 
doubtful,  and  his  mind  far  from  meek  "  (Vita  Solitaria, 
II,  vii,  i).  This  was  Abelard;  hot  Abelard  the  philoso- 
pher, but  Abelard  the  hero  of  an  unhappy  love  story, 
one  who,  like  himself,  had  sought  refuge  in  solitude. 
And  the  manuscript  of  Abelard's  and  Heloise's  letters 
is,  after  that  of  Virgil,  the  most  interesting  of  his  col- 
lection for  the  notes  which  Petrarch  jotted  down  on  it 
—  interesting  not  so  much  for  his  comments  on  the 
style  or  the  sentiments  of  the  writers  (which  are  mostly 
in  the  vein  of  "  just  like  a  woman  "  or  "  not  inelegantly 
said,  Peter  '')  as  for  a  series  of  mysterious  dates  which 
excite  one's  curiosity,  since  refer  they  must  to  certain 
unknown  episodes  of  his  troubled  inner  life. 


los 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC 
CHARACTER 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC 
CHARACTER 

When  we  compare  epic  heroes,  such  as  Roland,  with 
romance  heroes,  like  those  of  the  Arthurian  poems,  we 
usually  consider  that  the  former  live  in  a  world  more  or 
less  prosaic  like  our  own,  while  the  latter  inhabit  one  of 
mystery,  where  the  phenomena  of  nature  are  subject  to 
the  caprices  of  supernatural  beings  or  mortals  possessed 
of  magic  power,  where  also  the  boundaries  between 
men,  animals,  and  plants  are  wavering  and  uncertain. 
This  distinction  is  not  an  imaginary  one.  Neverthe- 
less, if,  instead  of  limiting  our  vision  to  the  scenes  of 
the  exploits  of,  say,  French  and  Spanish  heroes,  we 
extend  it  over  that  immense  region  which  stretches 
from  Ireland  in  the  West  to  India  and  Siberia  in  the 
East,  we  must  modify  our  conception  to  a  considerable 
degree.  Superficially  there  seems  then  to  be  little 
difference  between  this  epic  world  and  that  of  romance. 
Certainly  the  former  is  infinitely  vaster  than  the  one  we 
know,  for  it  comprehends  not  only  the  surface  of  the 
globe  but  the  subterranean  regions  peopled  by  the 
dead,  by  the  powers  of  evil,  by  gnomes,  water  sprites, 
and  other  supernatural  beings.  It  includes  also  the 
heavens,  and  the  intermediate  space  between  them  and 
the  earth,  inhabited  by  gods,  valkyrias,  swan  maidens, 
and  other  creatures  of  the  air  and  sky. 

109 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

Now,  while  pla5dng  his  part  on  this  great  stage,  the 
epic  hero,  who  surpasses  us  in  courage,  strength,  and 
endurance,  is  helped  in  many  ways  denied  us.  In  the 
first  place,  not  merely  is  he  aided  by  the  counsels  and 
armed  assistance  of  his  king,  his  comrades,  and  his 
people,  but  all  nature  follows  his  career  with  eager 
interest.  She  heralds  his  birth  with  terrific  demonstra- 
tions, flashes  lightning,  hurls  thimderbolts,  causes  the 
earth  to  rock  from  side  to  side,  and  on  the  whole 
behaves  in  such  a  startling  fashion  that  the  people,  and 
above  all  the  troubled  parents,  regard  the  child  with 
very  mingled  feelings,  and  are  uncertain  whether  to 
cherish  or  to  expose  him.  In  a  quieter  but  far  more 
effectual  manner  she  accompanies  and  assists  him  dur- 
ing his  arduous  lifetime.  Seldom  can  the  epic  hero  be 
said  to  be  alone,  for,  though  leagues  of  plains  and 
mountains  may  separate  him  from  his  comrades,  he  has 
the  fellowship  of  the  trees  of  the  forest,  the  mountain 
peaks,  the  winds,  the  clouds,  stars,  moon,  and  sun  — 
all  of  which  in  articulate  human  words  cheer  him  and 
give  him  timely  warning  and  advice.  The  Bulgarian 
and  Servian  heroes,  who  do  a  tremendous  amount  of 
letter  writing,  have  at  their  disposal  a  remarkably 
efficient  postal  service  conducted  by  the  Httle  birds, 
who  answer  calls  promptly,  deliver  the  letters  with  the 
greatest  dispatch,  and  faithfully  bring  back  the  answer 
if  one  is  required.  Should  nature  for  any  reason  be  at 
all  tardy  in  lending  her  assistance,  the  hero  often  is  able 
to  force  her  to  do  his  will.   At  his  bidding  utter  darkness 

no 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

falls  upon  the  earth,  mists  rise  and  hide  the  footsteps  of 
his  men  from  the  pursuing  enemy,  twigs  buried  be- 
neath a  path  rob  his  foes  of  half  their  strength.  His 
weapons  themselves  not  only  are  strong  because  of 
their  sharp  points  or  edges,  the  vigorous  arm  which 
wields  them,  the  sure  eye  which  directs  them,  but  they 
are  potent  with  the  spells  uttered  by  the  wizard  hero. 

Again,  divine  help  is  vouchsafed  the  hero  in  battle. 
The  gods  and  goddesses  of  Greece  took  sides  in  the 
siege  of  Troy,  the  gods  of  India  were  no  idle  spectators 
in  the  great  battle  of  Kurukshetra,  apostles  and  saints 
have  fought  in  the  ranks  with  Christian  soldiers  against 
the  Saracens. 

Finally,  the  universal  sympathy  which  greets  the 
hero  at  his  birth  and  accompanies  him  through  life,  does 
not  desert  him  at  his  death.  In  answer  to  Charle- 
magne's prayer  God  bids  the  sim  stand  still  in  heaven, 
that  vengeance  may  be  wreaked  upon  the  slayers  of 
Roland.  Tears  stream  from  the  trees,  the  winds  sob, 
the  mountains  lament  the  death  of  the  Greek  KJepht. 

Now,  of  all  the  friends  of  the  epic  hero,  there  is  one 
whom  I  have  not  mentioned,  yet  none  is  more  faithful, 
more  affectionate,  more  helpful.  I  mean  the  hero's 
horse.  We  are  all  familiar  with  Pegasus,  Bellerophon's 
winged  steed,  we  have  heard  of  Bucephalus,  and  we 
know  that  Xanthus  foretold  the  death  of  Achilles. 
But  these  are  only  three  of  a  multitude  of  heroic  horses 
coming  from  different  countries  which  cover  a  large 
part  of  two  continents.    Where  the  imagination  of  the 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

people  is  on  the  whole  sober  and  pedestrian,  they  are 
little  more  than  very  intelligent,  sensitive,  high-spirited 
animals;  where  there  are  no  fixed,  well-defined  bound- 
aries between  the  natural  and  supernatural  worlds, 
they  are  marvellous,  protean  creatures  like  their  semi- 
divine  masters. 

That  the  horse  plays  an  important  part  in  mythology 
and  folklore  has  been  clearly  shown  by  Jahns,  De 
Gubematis,  von  Negelein,  Freytag,  and  others:  it  is 
my  purpose  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  his  r61e  in 
the  popular  epic  is  equally  conspicuous.  Bangert,  in 
his  monograph  on  animals  in  the  chansons  de  geste,  has 
devoted  considerable  space  to  the  different  horses 
appearing  in  those  poems.  But  the  possible  field  is 
much  wider.  It  includes  practically  all  the  epic  Htera- 
ture  of  Europe  and  Asia. 

Now,  in  this  immense  body  of  narrative  matter  there 
is  no  reason  why  the  horse  should  not  be  a  prominent 
actor.  Inanimate  things,  like  weapons,  for  instance, 
often  have  names,  a  certain  individuality  and  history. 
Why  not,  then,  an  animate  being  as  intelligent  as  the 
horse  ?  Remember  that  he  is  the  hero's  closest  com- 
panion. In  the  thick  of  the  fray,  on  long  solitary 
expeditions,  he  is  always  with  him,  when  friends,  kins- 
men, and  king  are  distant.  Again,  while  it  may  be  true 
that  there  is  not  so  much  of  the  supernatural  in  the 
epic  as  in  the  romance,  still  the  supernatural  is  there. 
However  faithful  to  fact  the  nucleus  of  any  given  epic 
may  have  been,  the  poem  as  we  have  it  usually  owes  no 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

small  part  of  its  bulk  to  folklore  and  mythology.  Then, 
too,  our  particular  epic  may  be  in  a  transition  stage 
between  epic  and  romance. 

Still,  in  spite  of  all  this,  it  would  not  be  surprising  if 
we  had  nothing  but  a  collection  of  descriptive  phrases 
as  splendid  as  the  famous  one  in  Job,  or  pretty  stories 
illustrating  the  intelligence  of  the  horse  —  the  kind  of 
an  anthology  one  might  glean  from  newspapers,  or 
farming  and  sporting  journals.  One  finds  something  of 
this  sort  in  the  Arabian  epic  romance  of  Antar.  The 
Arab  horse  is  famous  throughout  the  world,  and  all 
know  well  enough  the  brilliant  audacity  of  oriental 
imagination;  yet  Antar^s  steed,  almost  as  celebrated 
as  Antar  himself,  is,  apart  from  his  beauty,  a  very 
commonplace  animal.  Now,  the  epic  horses  of  which  I 
wish  to  treat  belong  to  quite  a  different  category.  I 
hope  to  prove  that  many  of  them  have  as  just  a  claim 
as  their  masters  to  be  called  heroic. 

In  showing  what  the  epic  horse  is,  I  shall  trace  his 
career  from  the  moment  he  appears  on  the  scene  to  the 
moment  he  disappears.  I  advisedly  refrain  from  using 
the  words  ^'  birth  "  and  "  death,''  because,  as  is  the 
case  with  some  of  his  masters,  his  beginning  and  end  are 
not  infrequently  shrouded  in  mystery.  First  of  all,  he 
comes  into  his  master's  possession  in  a  number  of  ways. 
He  may  be  a  gift,  a  part  of  booty  in  war,  or  he  may  have 
been  handed  down  from  father  to  son.  The  horse  of  the 
Russian  Dobrynya  Nikitich  served  several  generations. 
Occasionally  he  is  bought  from  a  dealer.    This  is  suffi- 

113 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

ciently  commonplace;  yet  the  famous  Bayard  and  the 
Persian  Rakhsh  were  obtained  in  this  fashion.  In  the 
latter  case  there  is  a  redeeming  note  of  mystery.  Rustem 
asks  the  dealer  what  are  the  origin  and  the  price  of  the 
animal.  The  dealer,  who  does  not  recognize  the  hero, 
answers  evasively:  "  Many  rumors  are  current  about 
this  horse.  So  far  as  we  know,  he  has  no  master;  we 
call  him  Rakhsh  the  steed  of  Rustem.''^  When  the  dealer 
does  find  out  to  whom  he  has  been  talking,  he  gives  the 
horse  to  Rustem,  and  will  accept  no  payment  in  return. 
Evidently  we  have  here  what  we  meet  with  in  a  number 
of  other  places:  a  certain  horse  destined  for  a  certain 
hero.  So  marked  is  this  relation  at  times  that  horse 
and  hero  are  born  at  the  same  moment.  But  there  was 
something  else  interesting  in  the  horse  dealer's  remarks 
—  the  ^'  many  rumors  "  he  refers  to.  One  of  them  I 
think  is  to  be  found  in  a  Kurdish  tale  pubHshed  by  Prym 
and  Socin.  It  gives  an  account  of  the  origin  of  the 
animal,  which  Firdusi,  the  Persian  epic  poet,  may  have 
known  and  yet  hesitated  to  use.  Rustem,  requiring  a 
horse,  is  told  by  the  Creator  to  go  to  the  seashore,  where 
he  must  dig  a  pit,  enter  it,  and  cover  himself  with  straw. 
At  daybreak  a  horse  wiU  rise  out  of  the  sea.  Rustem  is 
to  call  out  to  him  his  own  name  and  that  of  his  father. 
The  horse  will  then  be  his.  The  water  horse,  therefore, 
so  common  in  the  folklore  of  the  Kelts,  of  Germany, 
Bohemia,  and  other  countries,  appears  in  the  epic. 
Ridgeway,  who  published  a  work  on  the  horse  not  long 
ago,  says  it  is  evident  that  the  horses  of  the  Irish  hero 

114 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

Cuchullin  were  well  bred,  that  they  probably  came  from 
northern  Spain  or  Gaul.  The  author  of  the  epic  has  a 
different  story.  He  says  that  Cuchullin  caught  them 
as  they  came  out  of  the  lake,  wrestled  with  them,  and 
subdued  them.  In  the  Feast  of  Bricriu,  an  episode  of  the 
Irish  Ulster  epic  cycle,  Emer,  wife  of  Cuchullin,  boasts 
of  her  husband's  great  prowess.  "  Sooth,  lady,"  quoth 
Conall  the  Victorious,  "let  that  famous  fellow  come 
here,  that  we  may  enquire  of  him."  "No,"  quoth 
Cuchullin,  "  I  am  to-day  weary  and  exhausted.  I  will 
not  hold  a  duel  till  after  I  have  had  food  and  sleep."  In 
truth  that  was  really  so,  inasmuch  as  it  was  the  day  on 
which  he  had  fallen  in  with  his  steed,  the  Gray  of 
Macha,  by  the  side  of  the  Gray  Linn.  On  its  having 
come  out  of  the  loch,  Cuchullin  crept  up  to  it  and  put  his 
two  hands  around  the  steed's  neck,  till  they  twain  got  a- 
wrestling,  and  on  that  night  Cuchullin  came  chasing  with 
his  steed  to  Emain.  He  got  the  Black  Sainglenn  in  like 
wise  from  Lough  Dubh  Sainglenn.  The  Russian  hero 
Ilya  has  a  steed,  Cloudfall,  from  whose  hoofs  dripped 
little  rivers  and  lakes.  From  mountain  to  mountain  he 
sprang.  Where  his  hoofs  fell,  founts  of  water  gushed 
forth.  We  are  told,  too,  that  in  the  village  of  Kara- 
charovo,  Ilya's  birthplace,  there  is  a  chapel  built  upon 
the  spot  where  a  fountain  burst  forth  from  beneath 
Cloudfall's  hoof.  To  this  spring  fierce  bears  still  come  to 
quaff  the  water  and  gain  heroic  strength.  In  the  Greek 
epic,  Arion,  the  horse  of  Adrastus,  and  Pegasus,  ridden 
by  the  Corinthian  hero  Bellerophon,  are  both  the  off- 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

spring  of  the  water  god  Poseidon.  According  to  another 
tradition,  Arion  had  as  his  father  Zephyrus;  the  horses 
of  Achilles  and  Aeneas  had  as  father  Boreas.  The  heroic 
horse  is,  then,  the  offspring  of  the  winds  as  well  as  of  the 
water. 

With  these  epic  horses  in  mind  one  thinks  inune- 
diately  of  the  great  part  that  the  water  horses  (male 
water  sprites)  play  in  Gaelic  and  Cymric  folklore.  They 
come  on  shore  as  men  and  beguile  women.  Often  their 
real  nature  is  betrayed  by  the  presence  of  seaweed  in 
their  hair,  just  as  one  recognizes  the  water  sprite  in 
Russian  stories  from  water  dripping  from  a  comer  of  his 
shirt.  They  transform  themselves  into  birds  —  which 
is  interesting,  for,  if  our  epic  horses  have  much  to  do 
with  the  water,  like  Pegasus  they  are  also  at  home  in  the 
air.  Often  they  appear  as  ordinary  handsome  horses; 
and  when  unwary  men  have  mounted  upon  their  backs, 
they  tear  over  hill  and  dale,  then  soar  aloft,  and 
finally,  changing  into  mist,  let  fall  the  unlucky  rider. 
Only  a  very  bold  horseman  or  priest  can  ride  them  with 
safety.  Outside  of  Celtic  territory,  the  Scandinavian 
nykr  (Eng.  nicker)  is  spoken  of  as  a  horse.  He  appears 
on  land  as  a  handsome  dapple-gray  steed  ^ — but  his 
hoofs  turn  the  wrong  way.  German  legends  speak  of  a 
big  black  horse  rising  out  of  the  sea.  Grimm  says  that 
to  the  water  sprite  the  whole  or  half  of  a  horse^s  figure 
is  attributed,  and  that  is  why  horses  are  sacrificed  to 
rivers.  This  last  is  true  also  of  Russian  folklore.  It 
is  worth  noting  that  in  the  Shah  Nameh  the  hero  Yez- 

ii6 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

digerd  is  killed  by  a  white  horse  which  comes  out  of  a 
fountain. 

A  number  of  these  supernatural  horses  are  related  to 
one  another.  In  the  Norse  Saga,  Grani  is  the  offspring 
of  Sleipnir,  and  Sleipnir  had  as  parents  the  horse 
SvaS'ilfari  and  the  god  Loki.  Just  as  human  heroes  in 
the  epic,  at  first  in  no  wise  connected  with  each  other, 
are  later  made  members  of  the  same  family,  so  we  have 
horse  families.  This  is  true  of  the  horses  in  the  German 
Dietrich  Saga;  and  here  is  an  especially  good  instance 
from  the  Russian  songs.  When  Dyuk  Stepanovich 
weeps  bitterly  because  he  has  rashly  wagered  that  his 
shaggy  pony  is  swifter  than  the  hero  Churilo's  horse, 
the  pony  says:  "  Cheer  up,  pathetic  master  mine!  Not 
over  Mother  Dnieper^s  flood  alone  will  I  leap,  but  yet 
three  versts  upon  the  other  side.  If  I  yield  not  to  my 
elder  brother,  much  less  will  I  give  way  before  my 
younger.  For  my  eldest  brother  is  with  Ilya  of  Murom, 
my  second  with  Dobrynya  Nikitich.  I  am  the  third, 
and  Churilo's  steed  is  but  the  fourth." 

Another  resemblance  exists  between  horse  and  human 
heroes.  The  childhood  of  the  latter  frequently  gives  no 
promise  of  their  future  brilHant  careers.  Now,  the  epic 
has  much  to  say  about  the  appearance  of  the  different 
horses.  Some  are  splendid  creatures.  This  is  the  way 
the  daughter  of  Queen  Meve  described  the  steeds  of 
CuchuUin  as  she,  from  the  sunny  parlor  over  the  great 
door  of  the  fort,  watched  them  approach:  "I  see  two 
horses  of  the  one  size  and  beauty,  the  one  fierceness 

H7 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

and  speed,  with  ears  pricked,  heads  high,  spirited  and 
powerful,  with  fine  nostrils,  wide  foreheads,  mane  and 
tail  curled,  leaping  together.  The  one  gray,  handsome, 
with  broad  thighs,  eager,  thundering,  trampling.  As  he 
goes,  his  fierce  hoofs  throw  up  sods  of  earth  like  a  flock 
of  swift  birds  after  him.  As  he  gallops  on  the  way,  a 
flash  of  hot  breath  darts  from  him;  from  his  curbed 
jaws  gleams  a  blast  of  flame-red  fire.  The  other,  dark, 
small-headed,  thin-sided,  broad-backed,  sure-footed. 
They  come  together  with  fast,  joyful  steps,  moving 
o'er  the  plain  like  a  swift  moimtain  mist,  or  like  the 
rushing  of  a  loud  wind  in  winter.''  Part  of  this  descrip- 
tion recalls  that  of  Sigurd's  steed  in  an  old  Danish 
song.  "  Fire  flamed  from  his  mouth,  and  his  eye  was  as 
bright  as  the  morning  star."  So  one  might  continue  to 
quote  indefinitely;  but,  as  I  have  said,  all  heroic  horses 
are  not  so  well-favored.  The  Spanish  Babieca  was  a 
mangy  colt  when  the  youthful  Cid,  to  his  godfather's 
great  disgust,  chose  him  from  among  other  horses  in  the 
paddock.  Nearly  all  the  Russian  steeds  are  spoken  of 
as  shaggy  Httle  animals.  In  some  of  the  Ilya  songs, 
Cloudfall,  when  bought,  is  desperately  ugly.  Three 
months  Ilya  fed  him  with  finest  Turkish  wheat  and 
watered  him  from  a  pure  stream.  Then  he  boimd  him 
three  nights  in  the  garden  and  anointed  him  with  three 
morning  dews.  This  done,  he  led  the  foal  to  the  lofty 
paling,  and  the  good  horse  began  to  leap  from  side  to 
side  and  was  able  to  sustain  Ilya's  vast  weight,  for  he 
had  become  a  heroic  steed. 

ii8 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

We  see  by  this  that  the  horse  has  to  undergo  a  pre- 
liminary training.  At  least,  he  must  pass  some  ordeal 
before  he  is  accepted  as  a  heroic  horse.  The  most  fre- 
quent is  the  test  of  his  abihty  to  carry  the  hero,  who 
crushes  the  ordinary  horse  to  the  ground.  Sometimes, 
as  in  the  Persian  epic,  the  hero  strikes  the  animal  on 
the  back  to  see  whether  it  can  stand  the  blow.  Occa- 
sionally the  hero  has  to  conquer  the  horse  in  a  kind  of 
duel.  The  strangest  test  of  all  is  that  described  in  a 
Bulgarian  ballad.  The  child  Golomeshe  enters  the 
cool  stable,  seizes  a  little  horse  by  the  tail  and  swings  it 
out  into  the  yard.  Clearly  this  one  will  not  do.  He 
continues  until  he  finds  one  that  he  is  unable  to  move. 

The  horse,  when  once  he  has  proved  his  proficiency, 
can  do  almost  anything.  I  shall  pass  over  extraordinary 
feats  in  running,  jumping,  and  swimming.  Often  he  is 
able  not  only  to  leap  from  hill  to  hill,  but  actually  to 
fly.  A  number  of  the  Greek,  Bulgarian,  and  Russian 
horses  are  as  much  at  home  in  the  air  as  on  the  ground. 
Dyuk's  horse  is  spoken  of  as  having  pinions.  Marko's 
could  soar  high  into  the  air  and  pursue  a  Vila  (a  kind  of 
female  elf).  Marko's  mother's  brother  Momchil  pos- 
sessed a  steed  which  certainly  had  wings.  They  were 
of  fine  gauze  or  silk,  evidently  invisible  when  not  used; 
for  when  Momchil's  faithless  wife  enters  the  stable  to 
cripple  the  animal,  she  burns  them  off,  and  Momchil  is 
none  the  wiser  when  he  sets  forth  on  his  last  ride. 

Particularly  interesting  is  the  fact  that  the  heroic 
horse,  like  his  master,  is  a  great  fighter.    Is  this  because 

119 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

in  the  periods  of  epic  fermentation  men  were  familiar 
with  wild  horses  ?  They  were  to  be  found  in  Germany 
as  late  as  the  sixteenth  century.  Down  to  compara- 
tively late  times  the  hestavig,  or  horse  fight,  was  a  fa- 
vorite sport  of  the  Norsemen;  and  through  them  the 
Irish  probably  became  famihar  with  it.  The  tarpan,  a 
wild  horse  found  near  the  Caspian  Sea,  is  feared  now  by 
the  Siberian  nomads.  The  Arab  stalHon,  according  to 
Richard  Burton,  is  supposed  to  fight  for  his  master.  It 
is  very  possible,  however,  that,  in  spite  of  these  facts, 
we  have  in  the  stories  little  more  than  a  transference  of 
epic  qualities  from  hero  to  horse.  Whatever  be  the 
cause,  like  the  Chaldaean  horses  mentioned  by  Habak- 
kuk,  our  epic  horses  are  swifter  than  leopards  and,  often, 
more  fierce  than  the  evening  wolf.  ConalFs  dog-headed 
steed  takes  a  bite  out  of  the  side  of  the  hero's  opponent. 
Ekkehart's  Roschlin  puts  three  hundred  men  to  flight. 
The  horse  which  Fierabras  gave  Oliver  had  already 
struck  down,  strangled,  and  devoured  more  than  a 
hundred  men. 

Coming  back  to  the  Arab  horse,  Tweedie  says:  "  The 
noble  mare  frequently  shows  her  aversion  when  those 
whom  she  does  not  know  approach  her.  The  staUion 
picketed  beside  the  tent  is  as  good  as  a  sentinel.  The 
first  sound  of  an  intruder  brings  him  to  attention. 
Generally  he  will  stamp  with  one  forefoot,  and  chal- 
lenge, not  braying  like  a  kadish  [cart-horse],  but  sound- 
ing one  or  two  sharp  notes,  to  indicate  that  he  will  make 
no  terms."    Burton  tells  very  much  the  same  story. 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

"  The  Arab  horse  stands  guard  over  his  sleeping  master 
and  warns  him  of  approaching  danger/'  Many  an  epic 
horse  does  the  same  —  and  even  more,  for  at  least  in 
some  favored  countries  he  is  gifted  with  powers  lacking 
to  even  the  most  intelligent  horses  we  are  familiar  with. 
The  Persian  Rakhsh,  for  instance,  can  see  an  ant  on  a 
piece  of  black  felt  ten  parasangs  away  on  the  darkest 
night. 

The  epic  horse  also  is  frequently  able  to  speak.  Here 
is  an  example  from  Russia,  which  shows,  in  addition, 
extraordinary  resourcefulness.  Prince  Vladimir,  lis- 
tening one  day  to  the  boasts  of  his  heroes,  exclaimed 
himself:  "  I  too  can  boast.  Besides  my  three  hundred 
stallions,  my  iron-gray,  and  my  horse  with  the  long 
mane,  I  have  a  coal-black  steed.  He  can  gallop  from 
Kiev  to  Chernigov  between  mass  and  matins;  and  the 
distance  is  three  hundred  versts  and  thereto  thirty 
versts  and  three.  Is  there  in  all  Kiev  town  a  man  whose 
horse  can  do  the  like  ?  "  All  hid  and  made  no  answer. 
Then  did  Ivan  step  forth  and  cry  in  loud,  piercing  tones : 
"  Lord,  courteous  Vladimir,  such  a  horse  have  I.  And 
I  will  wager  my  turbulent  head  that  he  will  run  against 
thy  horse.''  With  speed  they  wrote  out  strong  con- 
tracts and  set  their  white  hands  thereto.  Then  Ivan 
drank  a  bucket  and  a  half  of  green  wine,  saluted  all, 
and  went  forth  to  the  white  stall.  He  fell  down  before 
his  horse's  left  hoof  and  wept  floods.  "  Help  me,  good 
steed,"  quoth  he;  and  he  told  him  of  the  wager.  The 
shaggy  brown  answered  in  good  Russian  tongue :  "  Hey, 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

courteous  master  mine,  grieve  not.  I  fear  not.  Do 
thou  water  me  for  three  dawns  with  mead  and  give  me 
Saracen  wheat."  When  the  day  of  the  race  came,  Ivan 
rode  into  the  courtyard  upon  his  steed.  Then  did  the 
shaggy  brown  dance  about  the  court,  and  roar  Hke  an 
aurochs  and  hiss  and  shriek  Hke  a  dragon.  The  three 
hundred  stallions  were  affrighted  and  fled,  the  iron-gray 
broke  two  legs,  the  long-maned  steed  his  neck;  the 
black  fled  neighing,  with  tail  uplifted,  to  the  Golden 
Horde,  leaping  the  Dnieper  stream  in  his  flight.  Then 
said  sweet  Ivan:  "Delay  not.  Prince  Vladimir,  but 
count  me  out  the  300,cxx)  roubles."  This  Vladimir  did 
with  sorrow  and  said:  "  The  devil  take  thee  and  thy 
steed."    Thus  was  the  great  race  run. 

Here  is  another  story,  this  time  from  a  modern  Greek 
ballad,  the  Rescue  of  the  Wife  of  Liakos.  What  mis- 
fortune has  happened  to  the  wife  of  Liakos?  Five 
Albanians  hold  her  prisoner  and  they  ask  her:  "  O 
Liskena,  won't  you  marry  ?  Do  you  not  want  a  Turk 
for  a  husband  ?  "  But  Liakos  sees  her  from  a  high  hill. 
His  black  horse  is  close  to  him,  and  he  whispers  in  his 
ear:  "  Can  you,  my  horse,  can  you  deliver  your  mis- 
tress ?  "  "  Yes,  I  can,  my  master,  I  can  deliver  my 
mistress,  for  then  she  may  increase  my  rations.  I  go." 
And  he  does  go,  frees  his  master's  wife,  and  brings  her 
home.  This  same  lack  of  disinterestedness  appears  in 
another  modern  Greek  ballad  of  a  similar  nature.  One 
day,  while  Akritas  is  plowing  in  the  field,  a  bird  flies  up 
to  him  and  tells  him  that  his  wife  Eudoxia  and  his  best 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

steed  have  been  abducted.  Akritas  rushes  home,  dis- 
covers the  windows  and  doors  open,  enters  the  stable, 
where  he  finds  his  horses  whinnying.  "  In  the  name  of 
God,  horses,"  he  cries,  "  which  of  you  can  run 
quickly  ?  "  Not  one,  not  one  spoke.  But  an  old  horse 
speaks  and  answers:  "  If  you  give  me  good  food,  I  '11  go 
quickly." 

Not  all  masters  beg  or  bribe;  some  order,  and  here  is 
an  illustration  —  not  this  time  from  the  modern,  but 
from  the  old  Greek  epic,  from  Homer.  Achilles  is 
speaking  just  before  he  sets  out  to  fight  Hector.  "  Xan- 
thus  and  Balius,  illustrious  offspring  of  Podarge,  resolve 
now  in  a  different  manner  to  bring  back  your  charioteer 
to  the  Greeks,  after  we  are  satiated  with  battle,  nor 
leave  him  dead,  like  Patroclus."  But  from  beneath 
the  yoke,  Xanthus,  his  swift-footed  steed,  addressed 
him,  the  white-armed  goddess  Juno  giving  him  the 
power  of  speech:  "  This  time,  at  least,  we  will  bear 
thee  safe,  O  impetuous  Achilles,  but  the  fatal  day  draws 
nigh  to  thee;  nor  are  we  to  blame,  but  a  mighty  deity 
and  violent  destiny.  Though  we  can  run  even  with  the 
blast  of  Zephyrus,  which  they  say  is  most  fleet,  yet  to 
thyself  it  is  fated  thou  shalt  be  violently  slain  by  a  god 
or  a  man."  Him  swift-footed  Achilles,  greatly  indig- 
nant, addressed:  "  O  Xanthus,  why  dost  thou  predict 
my  death  to  me  ?  Well  do  I  myself  know  that  it  is  my 
fate  to  perish  here,  far  away  from  my  dear  father  and 
mother.  Nevertheless  I  will  not  cease  before  the 
Trojans  are  abundantly  satiated  with  war."    Achilles 

123 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

is  impatient  and  harsh  in  speech.     Other  heroes  are 
gentler  when  warned  of  impending  death. 

When  Cuchullin  is  about  to  enter  his  last  fight,  the 
Gray  of  Macha  will  not  allow  Laegh  the  charioteer  to 
harness  him.  Laegh  says  to  Cuchullin:  "  I  swear  by 
the  God  by  whom  my  people  swear  that  though  all  the 
men  of  Conor^s  fifth  were  round  the  Gray  of  Macha, 
they  could  not  bring  him  to  the  chariot.  Come  thou, 
if  thou  wilt,  and  speak  with  the  Gray  himself."  Cuchul- 
lin went  to  him,  and  thrice  did  the  horse  turn  his  left 
side  to  his  master.  Then  Cuchullin  reproached  him, 
saying  that  he  was  not  wont  thus  to  deal  with  his 
master.  Thereat  the  Gray  of  Macha  came  and  let  fall 
big  round  tears  of  blood  on  Cuchullin's  feet.  And  Cu- 
chullin leaped  into  the  chariot  and  started  southwards 
along  the  road.  .  .  .  CuchuUin  was  wounded  to  death. 
He  went  to  a  pillar  stone  that  was  in  the  plain,  and  put 
his  girdle  round  it,  that  he  might  not  die  seated  or  lying 
down  but  standing  up.  Then  came  the  men  around  him, 
but  they  durst  not  go  to  him,  for  they  thought  that  he 
was  alive.  And  the  Gray  of  Macha  came  to  protect 
him  as  long  as  his  soul  was  in  him;  and  the  hero's  Hght, 
out  of  his  forehead,  shone  about  him.  And  fifty  fell  by 
his  teeth,  and  thirty  by  each  of  his  hoofs.  ...  At  last 
Cuchullin  dies,  and  the  Gray  goes  to  Conall.  Together 
he  and  the  Gray  of  Macha  sought  CuchuUin's  body. 
They  saw  the  corpse  of  the  hero  at  the  pillar  stone. 
Then  went  the  Gray  of  Macha  and  laid  his  head  on 
Cuchullin's  breast.    And  Conall  said:   "  A  heavy  care 

124 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

is  that  corpse  to  the  Gray  of  Macha.'^  The  pathos  and 
brevity  of  these  last  words  are  matched  in  a  short  Norse 
lay:  "  We  have  hewn  Sigurd  asunder  with  the  sword;  the 
gray  horse  may  droop  his  head  forever  over  the  dead 
king."  One  more  death  scene.  This  time  it  is  a  modem 
Greek  ballad  of  Vevros  and  his  horse.  Vevros,  alas!  was 
lying  on  the  ground,  and  his  horse  said  to  him:  "  Arise, 
master,  and  let  us  go  our  way.  Our  company  is  depart- 
ing." "  I  cannot  move,  my  good  steed.  I  am  going 
to  die.  Come,  dig  up  the  earth  with  your  feet,  with 
your  iron  shoes;  take  me  up  in  your  teeth  and  drop 
me  into  the  earth;  then  take  my  arms  and  carry  them 
to  my  kinsmen;  take  also  my  handkerchief  and  carry 
it  to  my  sweetheart,  that  she  may  weep  when  she 
sees  it." 

The  hfe  of  the  epic  horse,  then,  resembles  that  of  the 
epic  hero.  He  is  often  of  supernatural  origin.  Some- 
times he  is  glorious  when  he  first  appears,  often  enough 
he  is  the  ugly  duckhng  of  the  fairy  story.  Frequently 
he  has  to  pass  some  ordeals  before  he  is  recognized  as 
worthy  to  become  an  epic  actor.  He  is  not  only  a  great 
fighter,  but  a  far-sighted,  devoted  friend,  with  all  the 
virtues  and  seldom  with  any  of  the  vices  of  his  master. 
His  vision  pierces  the  future  and  the  veil  that  hides 
gods  and  fairies  from  men.  Usually  his  career  ends 
with  that  of  the  hero  he  has  served.  Sometimes  the 
latter,  feeling  that  his  own  death  is  inevitable,  kills  his 
old  friend  to  prevent  his  falling  into  the  hands  of  a 
stranger. 

125 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

Let  us  now,  in  conclusion,  pass  in  review  the  careers  of 
four  epic  horses,  two  from  the  west  and  two  from  the  east. 

Our  first  horse  hero  shall  be  Marchegai,  and  his  story 
is  told  in  the  French  epic,  Aiol.  Aiol  is  the  son  of  a 
certain  Count  Elie,  who  has  been  banished  from  Charle- 
magne^s  court  and  has  lived  for  fifteen  years  with  his 
wife  in  the  dreariest  spot  of  all  France,  the  landes  near 
Bordeaux  —  that  is,  in  Gascony.  At  the  end  of  that 
time  Aiol,  a  lad  now  some  thirteen  years  old,  decides 
that  the  time  has  come  to  go  forth  into  the  world, 
avenge  his  father,  and  recoup  the  family  fortunes.  All 
that  EHe  can  give  him  is  his  blessing,  a  liberal  store  of 
good  advice,  his  lance  (which  because  of  long  exposure 
to  wind  and  rain  had  become  rusty  and  bent),  the 
old  hauberk  and  helmet,  the  good  sword  which  he  had 
kept  poHshed,  and,  best  of  all,  his  horse  Marchegai. 
"  He  is  ill  groomed  now,  very  lean  and  sickly,^'  says  the 
father,  "  his  four  feet  are  unshod;  but  do  not  sell  him 
nor  pawn  him,  do  not  stint  him  of  fodder,  and  he  will 
soon  be  fairer  than  any  other  horse."  Thus  equipped, 
Aiol  started  forth  like  another  young  Gascon  gentleman, 
some  eight  hundred  years  later,  whose  acquaintance 
nearly  every  one  has  made  in  the  Three  Musketeers, 
poor,  shabby,  but  with  a  high  heart  and  great  am- 
bition. And  the  mockery  that  greeted  D'Artagnan 
mounted  upon  his  buttercup-colored  Rosinante,  wel- 
comed Aiol  as  he  entered  the  cities  of  Poitiers  and 
Orleans.     According  to  Dumas,  D'Artagnan  checked 

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THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

to  some  extent  the  demonstrations  of  hilarity  by  the 
sight  of  his  clenched  fist,  the  ferocious  rather  than 
haughty  expression  of  his  eye,  forcing  the  mockers,  if 
they  would  laugh,  to  laugh  with  but  one  side  of  their 
faces,  like  the  antique  masks.  As  for  the  shaggy  steed, 
he  kept  his  eyes  bent  on  the  ground,  his  head  drooping 
lower  than  his  knees,  meekly  ignoring  the  insults  of  the 
horse-connoisseurs  of  Meung.  In  the  epic,  it  is  the 
horse  who  is  resentful  and  unwilling  to  tolerate  any 
criticism  of  his  master's  appearance.  Aiol  entered  the 
city,  says  the  poem,  one  Thursday  at  the  hour  of 
vespers.  His  lance  was  bent  and  black,  his  shield  old 
and  his  sword-strap  broken.  Marchegai  noticed  the 
shabby  arms.  His  nostrils  dilated,  he  opened  his 
mouth,  and  bore  his  head  high,  like  a  stag  hunted  with 
horns  and  pursued  by  hounds  in  the  leafy  forest. 
Knights  and  burghers  stared  at  Aiol.  Ladies  and 
maidens  mounted  into  the  towers,  and  one  citizen  said 
to  his  fellow:  "  Look,  friend,  who  is  this  robber  ?  The 
arms  he  bears  he  has  stolen.  But  his  face  is  bright  and 
fair,  and  well  he  seems  to  be  son  of  a  noble  mother." 
Aiol  went  his  way  greatly  angered,  for  all,  big  and  little, 
followed  and  mocked  him.  Then  up  came  a  knave  out 
of  a  cellar;  he  had  drunk  much,  played  at  dice,  and  lost 
his  all.  He  stopped  Aiol.  "  Master,"  said  he,  "  are 
you  come  at  last  ?  Why  have  you  tarried  so  long  ?  My 
companions  have  lost  everything.  This  horse  is  very 
lean  and  broken  down;  he  will  be  sold  for  wine."  And 
he  seized  the  animal  by  the  bridle.    Marchegai  looked 

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THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

at  him,  and  knew  him  not;  raising  his  right  foot,  he 
struck  the  man  and  laid  him  dead  beside  him.  The 
citizens  who  saw  this  jeered.  "  That  man  left  the 
tavern  too  soon.  This  horse  seems  to  belong  to  the 
horses  of  King  Arthur:  he  cannot  endure  a  man  but 
must  kill  him.  Good  God!  how  shall  we  praise  rightly 
that  shield  which  resembles  the  arms  of  Lord  Esau  who 
lived  a  hundred  years  or  more!  "  Never  had  such  joy 
come  to  Poitiers.  The  citizens  were  wicked  and  evil- 
intentioned.  "  Tell  us,  sire,  where  will  you  take  that 
horse?  The  dogs  of  this  town  have  sworn  to  eat  his 
flesh."  Another  knave  ran  out  from  a  tavern;  he  tore 
the  bridle  from  Marchegai's  head  and  started  to  return 
to  the  drinking-shop.  When  Marchegai  felt  the  bit 
taken  from  his  mouth,  swiftly  he  ran  after  the  rascal. 
He  lowered  his  ear,  seized  the  man,  and  raising  him  four 
feet  from  the  ground,  shook  his  head  and  dropped  him. 
The  man  fell  to  the  earth  and  the  blood  gushed  from  his 
nostrils.  "  Surely,"  said  the  burghers,  "  that  is  a  magic 
horse."  Magic  or  not,  no  old  retainer,  no  faithful 
Ekkehart,  could  be  more  jealous  of  the  honor  of  the 
family  which  he  serves  than  this  apparently  decrepit 
steed.  He  is  aristocratic,  too,  and  will  not  tolerate 
other  horses  being  near  him.  And  he  knows  more  about 
war  than  many  a  knight,  the  poet  declares.  When  the 
villain  of  this  particular  epic  ridicules  his  appearance, 
Aiol  proposes  a  horse  race;  and  though  Marchegai  is 
heavily  handicapped,  he  wins  the  race  in  a  far  more 
legitimate  fashion  than  the  Russian  steed.    On  one  oc- 

128 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

casion  he  saves  his  master^s  Hfe.  Aiol,  sleeping  one 
day  in  the  forest,  is  unaware  of  the  approach  of  a  body 
of  Saracens.  His  horse,  however,  standing  guard  over 
him,  does  hear  the  clashing  of  shields,  helmets,  and 
lances,  and  instinctively  recognizes  the  strangers  as 
enemies.  In  the  words  of  the  poem,  "  such  grief  he  feels, 
he  nearly  goes  mad.  Loudly  he  neighs  and  fiercely 
paws  the  ground  till  Aiol  is  awakened." 

At  last  the  time  comes  for  Aiol  to  return  to  his  father. 
Greetings  have  hardly  been  exchanged  between  the  two 
men  when  Elie  asks  after  his  weapon  and  his  old  steed. 
You  may  remember  that  D'Artagnan  had  been  re- 
quested by  his  father  never  to  part  with  his  horse,  and 
nevertheless,  as  soon  as  he  had  arrived  at  Paris,  he  had 
sold  it  for  three  crowns.  Aiol,  more  obedient  and  kinder- 
hearted,  has  kept  Marchegai,  but  he  cannot  refrain 
from  teasing  his  father.  "  Sire,'*  he  says,  "  never  did  I 
hear  such  a  question.  The  white  hauberk  and  helmet 
could  not  last;  the  shield  and  lance  were  lost  while 
jousting;  and  Marchegai  is  dead  and  gone  to  his  end. 
Long  ago  the  dogs  have  eaten  him  in  the  ditch.  He 
could  run  no  longer,  he  was  so  old."  When  EUe  heard 
this  he  nearly  went  mad :  picking  up  a  club,  he  rushed 
at  Aiol,  for  he  wished  to  kill  him;  and  he  said  —  but  I 
forbear  to  quote  his  words.  Only  the  sight  of  Marchegai 
fresh  and  fat  after  a  long  rest  pacifies  him. 

Even  more  remarkable  is  the  story  of  Bayard,  the 
"  good  Gascon  horse,"  as  he  is  called  in  the  French  epic, 

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THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

Renattd  de  Montauhan.  He  seems  to  have  been  bought 
from  the  Duke  of  Lorraine  and  given  to  Renaud  on  the 
day  the  latter  was  knighted.  He  is  best  known  for  his 
ability  to  carry  a  number  of  people;  and  all  French 
children  are  familiar  with  pictures  representing  him 
with  the  four  sons  of  Aymon  upon  his  back.  Much  is 
also  said  about  his  speed.  "  Quicker  than  a  blackbird, 
at  the  shortest  leap  he  cleared  thirty  feet,  and  it  seemed 
to  those  who  were  watching  him  that  he  must  be  flying. 
You  could  not  see  him  move  foot  nor  leg.  So  resound- 
ing was  the  blow  of  his  hoof  that  it  could  be  heard  a 
league  away."  There  is  exaggeration  in  this  descrip- 
tion, and  in  the  account  of  a  race  which  he  wins  there 
is  actual  magic.  Renaud,  though  not  in  favor  at  court, 
wishes  to  enter  his  horse  in  a  race  that  is  announced. 
To  make  this  possible,  the  magician  Maugis  dyes 
Bayard  whiter  than  a  flower  and  makes  Renaud  appear 
like  a  fifteen-year-old  boy.  In  addition  Bayard's  right 
fore  foot  is  bandaged  so  that  he  will  limp  and  appear 
altogether  unpromising.  The  moment  he  appears,  there 
are  the  usual  shouts  of  derision.  The  race  begins. 
Renaud,  leaning  over  his  horse's  neck,  says  :  "  Bayard, 
we  are  going  too  slow.  If  the  others  arrive  before  us,  we 
shall  receive  great  blame,  and  you  will  be  reproached 
as  long  as  you  live."  Bayard,  understanding  Renaud, 
throws  up  his  head.  He  comprehends  his  master  as 
easily  as  a  mother  does  her  child.  Dilating  his  nostrils 
and  shaking  his  head,  with  outstretched  neck  he  flies 
over  the  earth.     In  three  arperits  of  ground  he  has 

130 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

passed  so  many  that  the  swiftest  steed  holds  himself  to 
be  slow.  Naturally  he  wins  the  race,  and  a  little  later 
carries  Renaud  across  the  Seine  as  easily  as  though  he 
were  on  land.  An  even  better  example  of  Bayard's 
human  understanding  and  of  the  affection  between 
him  and  his  rider  is  a  certain  occasion  when  Renaud,  in 
great  trouble,  comes  to  Bayard  in  the  stable,  puts  his 
two  arms  about  his  neck,  and  laments.  "Ah!  Bayard, 
good  horse,  why  can't  you  speak  ?  You  would  have 
comforted  me  in  my  grief."  Bayard  paws  the  ground 
and  acts  as  though  he  wished  to  be  saddled.  At  other 
times  it  was  his  custom  to  leap  about  and  play  with 
Renaud,  but  now  he  hardly  ventures  to  look  at  him,  for 
he  sees  that  he  is  in  great  sorrow. 

Like  Marchegai,  he  acts  upon  his  own  initiative. 
Like  Marchegai,  he  wakes  up  his  master  on  the  approach 
of  danger.  '^  Bayard  could  not  speak.  He  says  neither 
^  yes  '  nor  ^  no.'  But  he  raises  his  right  foot,  which  is 
big  and  round,  and  he  strikes  Renaud's  shield  a  great 
blow;  from  one  end  to  the  other  he  shatters  it."  On 
two  different  occasions,  when  Renaud  is  fighting  with 
Ogier  and  Roland  respectively,  Bayard  attacks  the 
opponents'  steeds.  "  When  Bayard  saw  Roland  lying 
on  the  ground,  he  threw  his  hind  feet  up  into  the  air 
tempestuously.  He  struck  Roland's  horse  on  the  left 
ear,  and  the  animal  fled  terrified  across  the  stream." 
Once,  in  a  combat  with  a  Saracen,  the  latter's  steed 
attempted  to  run  away.  Bayard,  noticing  this,  pursued 
it,  seized  it  by  the  mane,  and  brought  it  back.    The 

131 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

citizens  of  Bordeaux,  hearing  of  this,  with  one  accord, 
big  and  small,  cried  out:  "  Bayard  took  the  horse  and 
Renaud  took  the  master."  The  greatest  service  Bayard 
ever  rendered  was  during  a  great  siege,  when  Renaud 
and  his  brothers  suffered  terribly  from  famine.  For 
fourteen  days,  until  relief  came,  the  horse's  blood, 
drawn  from  him  every  day,  kept  them  alive. 

We  come  now  to  the  end  of  Bayard's  career.  Mar- 
chegai,  sharing  AioFs  prosperity,  is  honored  and  happy 
in  his  old  age.  Bayard,  partaking  of  Renaud's  hard 
fortunes,  obtains  sorrow  and  ill  treatment  as  his  lot. 
When  peace  is  declared  between  Charlemagne  and  the 
rebelKous  house  of  Montauban,  Renaud  was  forced  to 
surrender  his  faithful  companion.  Charlemagne,  only 
too  well  pleased  to  be  able  to  wreak  vengeance  upon 
Bayard,  had  him  thrown  from  a  bridge  with  a  stone 
collar  about  his  neck  to  ensure  his  drowning.  There 
was  not  a  peer  there  but  did  weep  for  Bayard  and  cen- 
sure the  king.  But  Bayard  did  not  die.  He  broke  the 
stone  and  fled  to  the  forest  of  Ardennes,  where  once  a 
year,  upon  midsummer  day,  he  can  still  be  seen.  The 
poet  dismisses  him  with  a  few  harsh  words.  "  When 
he  sees  a  man,  he  does  not  go  up  to  him.  No,  he  runs 
away  like  an  evil  spirit  unwiUing  to  serve  God." 

The  next  horse,  Sharatz,  comes  from  Bulgaria,  and 
his  exploits  are  described  in  the  ballads  about  the 
national  hero  Marko  Kralyevich.  Marko  is  told  by  his 
mother  that  at  the  death  of  his  father  the  latter's  steed, 

132 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

a  mare,  fled  to  the  seashore.  Marko  goes  thither,  finds 
the  mare,  and  with  it  a  three-year-old  colt,  upon  whose 
back  he  leaps.  He  is  carried  about  madly,  even  into 
the  water,  where  he  is  nearly  drowned.  Once  more  on 
land,  the  colt  bows  down  before  Marko  and  asks  him 
his  name.  On  being  told,  he  joyfully  acknowledges  the 
hero  as  his  master.  Marko  then  wishing  to  know  where 
he  can  have  him  shod,  the  old  mare  recommends  a 
certain  smith  who  used  to  shoe  her  during  her  years  of 
service.  We  have  now  come  to  the  horse  which  can 
actually  talk.  When,  for  instance,  Sharatz,  like  other 
epic  horses,  has  to  warn  his  master,  he  can  tell  him  who 
is  coming,  and  how  many  men  are  in  the  party.  And 
when  Marko  is  so  depressed  by  the  news  that  he  weeps, 
Sharatz  prophesies  victory  and  assures  him  that  he 
himself  will  kill  a  thousand  men  with  his  hoofs.  Here 
is  another  example  of  his  supernatural  inteUigence: 
one  day,  near  the  Danube,  the  horse  begins  to  snort 
and  paw  the  ground.  "  Come,  come!  "  cried  Marko, 
"  why  do  you  paw  the  ground  like  that  ?  because  I 
forgot  to  water  you  or  gave  you  your  fodder  late  ? 
Beware!  if  I  once  strike  you  upon  your  temple,  your 
eyes  will  certainly  fly  out  of  your  head."  "  What  ails 
you,  dear  master  ?  "  answers  Sharatz.  "  I  am  angry 
because  I  look  beyond  the  Danube  to  the  Wallachian 
land,  and  I  see  your  sister  Magdalena,  a  prisoner  of  Ali 
Aga.  She  is  weeping  bitterly  and  calling  for  her 
brother."  Marko  swung  himself  into  the  saddle;  before 
he  was  fairly  seated,  he  was  in  the  middle  of  the  stream; 

^33 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

before  he  was  firm  in  the  saddle,  he  was  across  the 
stream.  Quickly  he  seized  the  beautiful  Magdalena  and 
raised  her  upon  his  little  horse.  Ali  Aga  saw  Marko ;  but 
before  he  realized  what  had  taken  place,  Marko  was  in 
the  middle  of  the  stream.  Hardly  had  he  started  in  pur- 
suit, when  Marko  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  Danube. 

In  addition  to  his  ability  to  speak,  Sharatz  can  fly. 
It  so  happens  that  one  of  Marko's  dearest  friends  is 
killed  by  a  Vila  maiden.  Marko  embraces  and  kisses 
Sharatz  and  says  to  him:  "Oh,  thou,  my  right  wing, 
take  me  to  the  Vila,  and  I  will  shoe  you  with  silver  and 
pure  gold.  I  will  cover  you  with  silk  to  your  knees,  and 
the  tassels  will  hang  down  to  your  hoofs.  I  will  adorn 
your  mane  with  seed  pearls.  You  shall  eat  cakes  and 
drink  three-year-old  wine. ' '  Sharatz  answered : ' '  Mount 
upon  me  quickly,  for  I  see  the  Vila  maid  hastening, 
hiding  behind  the  sun.  Cover  your  eyes,  that  your  head 
may  not  swim.'' 

One  of  the  bribes  here  is  three-year-old  wine.  This 
may  seem  incongruous,  but  we  find  the  same  thing  else- 
where. The  Russian  horses  drink  mead;  the  steeds  of 
Hector  were  given  sweet  wine  by  Andromache,  as  he 
reminds  them  when  he  bids  them  serve  him  well.  Still, 
it  is  a  fact  that,  just  as  Marko  drinks  more  wine  than 
any  other  epic  hero,  so  Sharatz  surpasses  other  epic 
horses  in  this  respect.  Certainly,  in  all  Homer  you  will 
not  find  a  passage  like  the  following.  One  day  Marko 
rode  forth  to  visit  Philip  the  Magyar.  Over  the  walls 
he  leaped  and  entered  the  castle  on  horseback;  with  a 

134 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

blow  of  his  little  finger  he  knocked  out  seventy  teeth 
from  the  strawberry  mouth  of  PhiHp's  wife.  Then  he 
went  into  the  cool  wine-room  to  drink,  taking  good  care 
to  station  Sharatz  at  the  door  with  a  generous  measure 
of  wine.  Phihp  came  home,  saw  his  disfigured,  weeping 
wife,  and  went  in  pursuit  of  Marko;  but  enter  the  wine- 
room  he  could  not.  He  raised  his  club  and  beat  Sha- 
ratz; all  in  vain  he  beat  and  struck  him.  Sharatz 
heeded  him  not,  but  drank  and  drank. 

Again:  Marko,  having  heard  of  the  beauty  of  Ros- 
sanda  the  fair,  sister  of  Captain  Leko,  decided  to  go 
a-wooing.  He  put  on  his  richest  garments,  went  down 
to  the  courtyard,  and  made  ready  to  start;  but  first  he 
called  for  two  buckets  of  wine.  One  he  drank,  and 
became  red  to  the  eyes.  The  other  Sharatz  drank,  and 
became  red  to  his  ears.  Then  the  red  hero,  mounted 
upon  his  red  horse,  rode  forth. 

Other  acts  of  Sharatz,  such  as  dancing  at  his  master's 
request,  walking  lame,  leaping  castle  walls,  fighting 
horses,  we  may  omit,  and  pass  on  to  his  death.  Early 
one  Sunday  morning  Marko  was  riding  up  Mount 
Urvina.  As  he  climbed  it,  he  began  to  stumble,  and 
shed  tears.  Marko  was  greatly  troubled.  "  What  does 
this  mean,  Sharatz  ?  "  he  said.  "  One  hundred  and 
fifty  years  we  have  been  together.  Never  before  have 
you  stumbled,  and  now  you  stumble  and  weep.  God 
knows,  nothing  good  will  come  of  this.  Some  one  will 
lose  his  head,  either  you  or  I."  This  time  Sharatz  is 
dumb.    A  Vila  maiden,  calling  to  Marko,  tells  him  that 

135 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

his  last  hour  has  come  and  that  Sharatz  weeps  at  the 
thought  of  parting  from  his  old  friend.  "  Part  from 
me!  "  cries  Marko.  '^  Shall  I  give  up  my  faithful  steed 
that  has  borne  me  over  many  a  long  road  and  through 
many  a  dark  place  ?  Never  while  my  head  is  upon  my 
shoulders!  ^'  "No  one  will  take  Sharatz  from  you," 
says  the  Vila,  "  but  the  enemy  who  spares  no  living 
being  will  come  for  you,  Marko.  Look  at  your  face  in 
the  spring,  and  you  will  see  the  face  of  a  dead  man." 
Marko  looked  and  saw  that  he  must  surely  die.  Then 
he  drew  his  sword,  went  towards  his  horse,  and  cut  off 
his  head,  unwilling  that  he  should  fall  into  the  hands  of 
his  enemies  and  have  to  serve  them. 

Let  us  now  conclude  with  a  heroic  horse  described  in 
Tatar  songs,  particularly  those  which  come  from  the 
Minussinsk  district.  In  these  he  is  sometimes  the  chief 
actor,  and  we  almost  have  what  might  be  called  a  horse 
epic.  There  is  good  reason  for  this,  for  the  horse  plays 
an  even  more  important  role  in  the  life  of  the  Siberian 
nomads  than  among  European  peoples.  Not  only  is 
the  Tatars'  favorite  drink  fermented  mare's  milk,  but 
their  favorite  meat  is  the  flesh  of  the  horse,  and  they 
make  use  of  his  hair  and  hide  after  his  death.  This  seems 
quite  utilitarian;  but  the  Tatars  also  have  a  better  op- 
portunity to  study  him  in  a  natural  state  than  had  the 
medieval  Frenchmen.  Radloff ,  who  edited  the  Siberian 
songs,  makes  this  statement:  "The  stallion  is  the  ruler 
and  protector  of  the  herd.  Should  the  latter  be  attacked 

136 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

by  beasts  of  prey,  he  defends  it.  The  mares  form  a  circle, 
heads  to  the  centre,  and  in  the  centre  are  the  colts.  The 
stallion  remains  outside  and  attacks  the  aggressor.  He 
always  vanquishes  the  wolf  and  sometimes  the  bear. 
He  knows  every  member  of  the  herd,  and  should  any 
one  happen  to  leave  it,  he  drives  it  back.  When  the 
young  stallions  grow  up  and  begin  to  crowd  him,  he  tries 
to  expel  them  from  the  herd  by  biting  and  kicking.'' 

It  is  quite  natural,  then,  that  the  Siberian  epic  horse 
should  be  as  mighty  as  any  Russian  or  Irish  animal.  He 
is  even  more  superb  than  Cuchullin's  steeds.  He  is  as 
radiant  as  the  sun  and  the  moon,  his  mane  and  tail  are 
golden.  Fire  flashes  from  his  eyes;  smoke,  winds,  and 
storms  issue  from  his  nostrils;  his  hot  breath  melts  the 
bit,  his  iron  hoof  stops  the  arrow  in  its  flight.  Of  course 
he  can  fly  and  speak  with  a  human  voice.  Now  for  the 
story  of  one  of  these  remarkable  creatures.  Nothing 
could  be  wilder  or  more  fantastic;  but  one  must  bear 
in  mind  Schiefner's  description  of  the  conditions  in 
which  the  story  is  told:  the  winter  night,  the  wind 
whistling  over  the  steppes,  the  men  crouching  about 
the  fire,  the  Httle  circle  lit  up  by  flickering  flames,  and 
all  about  it  blackness  as  impenetrable  as  a  wall. 

Katai  Khan,  mounted  on  his  forty-horned  bull, 
carries  off  the  two  children  of  Ak  Khan,  and  gives  them 
with  other  children  as  a  tribute  to  the  old  Fish  Kiro 
Balak.  Though,  fortunately,  not  devoured,  they  are 
drowned,  and  their  bodies  are  left  on  the  shore.  There 
they  are  found  and  buried  by  a  certain  Sadei  Mirgan, 

137 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

who  takes  possession  of  their  property,  and,  the  more 
effectually  to  prevent  their  ever  appearing  again, 
stations  guards  about  their  grave.  One  day  shepherds 
come  to  the  usurper  and  tell  him  that  a  mare  has  just 
given  birth  to  an  extraordinary  white  colt.  This  is  our 
hero,  Sib ;  and  the  childhood  of  no  human  hero  is  more 
remarkable  than  his.  Scarcely  had  the  colt  been  born 
when  it  began  to  eat  grass.  It  leaped  back  and  forth 
six  times  over  its  mother's  back,  and  three  times  did  it 
swim  in  the  waves.  Sadei,  foreseeing  trouble,  deter- 
mined to  kill  it,  and  had  it  pursued  by  sixty  men.  For 
three  days  darkness  covers  the  earth.  When  the  ob- 
scurity departs,  only  the  hoof  prints  of  the  colt  can  be 
seen,  and  it  takes  the  pursuers  half  a  day  to  traverse 
the  space  between  those  of  the  hind  feet  and  those  of 
the  fore  feet.  With  this  start,  the  colt  has  no  difficulty 
in  returning  home  long  before  Sadei  and  his  men. 
It  now  changes  itself  into  a  little  six-year-old  girl,  takes 
seven  bags  of  strong  wine,  goes  to  the  grave,  makes  the 
guards  drunk,  and  sings  so  sweetly  that  all  the  beasts  of 
the  forest  and  all  the  birds  of  the  air  come  to  listen  to  it. 
The  guards  are  now  drowsy,  and  go  off  to  their  tents  to 
sleep.  Then  the  colt  leaps  over  the  grave  again,  and 
becomes  a  seven-year-old  boy.  Pushing  back  the  grave 
stone,  he  digs  down  sixty  fathoms,  takes  out  the  bones 
of  the  children,  puts  them  into  a  sack,  places  them  on 
his  back,  and  once  more  becomes  a  colt.  Suddenly  there 
is  a  tremendous  uproar.  The  black  earth  totters,  the 
mountains  crash,  the  rocks  spHt  apart.    This  disturb- 

138 


THE  HORSE  AS  AN  EPIC  CHARACTER 

ance  heralds  the  approach  of  Ak  Khan's  heroic  steed. 
After  six  years'  wanderings  through  twelve  lands,  he 
has  discovered  the  water  of  life.  He  brings  the  children 
back  to  hfe,  and  then  goes  in  search  of  his  master's  body. 
The  colt  now  hears  the  trampling  of  Katai  Khan's  bull; 
it  seizes  the  children,  places  them  on  its  back,  and  runs 
off  so  rapidly  that  it  escapes  an  arrow  shot  by  the 
furious  Katai.  In  its  flight,  it  comes  to  the  White  Sea, 
where  it  finds  an  old  friend  of  Ak  Khan,  Jebet  Khan, 
whom  it  persuades  to  fight  with  Katai.  Jebet  is  killed. 
A  similar  appeal  is  made  to  Alten  Kus,  with  the  same 
result.  Over  nine  mountains  the  colt  races,  and  finally 
it  comes  to  one  that  towers  so  high  into  the  clouds  that 
even  birds  are  unable  to  fly  above  it.  The  colt  bows  to 
the  sun,  then  to  the  moon,  and  begs  their  help.  Next 
it  tells  the  boy  to  take  a  birch  twig  and  beat  it  hard. 
The  boy  obeys,  and  the  colt  reaches  the  summit.  Here 
there  is  a  hot  spring,  out  of  which  the  boy  drinks  and 
falls  into  a  deep  and  most  untimely  sleep,  for  Katai 
and  the  bull  are  following  close  behind.  To  wake  the 
boy,  the  colt  is  obliged  to  give  him  a  kick,  which  sends 
him  seven  fathoms  from  his  sleeping-place.  In  the 
terrible  fight  which  ensues,  the  boy  puUs  Katai  off  the 
bull  and  succeeds  in  throwing  him  to  the  ground.  See- 
ing this,  the  bull  is  on  the  point  of  attacking  him,  when 
the  colt  picks  up  two  swords  and  cuts  him  in  half. 
Katai  is  killed;  the  boy  drinks  once  more  of  the  hot 
spring,  sleeps  seven  days,  and  then  wakes  to  find  him- 
self a  hero  and  his  colt  a  heroic  steed. 

139 


PRINTED  AT 

THE  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

CAUBRIDGE,  UASS.,  IT.  S.A. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

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BagTASKi    mi 


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REC  CIR  m  25 


Tel.  No.  642-3405 


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